“What’s with the lead pipe? Were you gonna give my noggin a floggin’?” – Ned Flanders

One of the true hallmarks of Zombie Simpsons is the way relationships between characters have changed for the worse. To take but one example, Lenny and Carl were once a pretty normal pair of work buddies and, as work buddies often are, they were hilarious together. Gradually that perfectly workable comedy devolved into not-gay/gay/hetero-life-mate/I-don’t-even-know-how-to-describe-it-because-no-one-in-real-life-is-anything-like-them. They stopped being recognizable characters and became an institution.

Much the same thing happened between Homer and Flanders. Homer used to simply resent his neighbor for being a better and more liked person than him. (Even in the above quoted “Homer Loves Flanders”, Homer only hangs out with Flanders because Ned lets Homer push him around and take advantage of him.) As The Simpsons turned into Zombie Simpsons Homer’s resentment dissolved and they became fast friends, getting into wacky adventures together. This vile episode is amongst the first of that dull genre.

Eight people on this one, including a token female.

2:00 – As they talk about the cow that makes ice cream I can actually detect a note of shame and/or regret. “Now this is probably one of those instances where we had an animal behave slightly too human.” Then the scene goes on for another twenty seconds of uncomfortable silence before the cow kicks Frink and they talk about how all their jokes are tested first.

3:20 – Talking about what they wanted to do with Ned after they killed Maude. Wasn’t this show supposed to not be concerned with character development?

5:30 – Ned’s weird Maude indent on the bed and the rest of this scene is described by them as the creepy part. Yeah, that’s why people like the show, the creepy factor.

6:15 – Homer is hanging from Ned’s window for no reason, “I got a feeling that wasn’t our original act break.” Followed, as usual, by laughter at the crappiness. That’s followed by this window into the suck, “When something’s not working you just put Homer in, if he’s not in the scene already.” That’s the kickoff to a discussion of how they like to do this. Homer used to be a character, now he’s a prop, and the creators are fine with this. Marvelous.

8:00 – As they conveniently discover Maude’s sketchbook on the lawn someone says, “That feels like it’s important to the plot.” as they all laugh at the cheap nature of the turn.

8:40 – “There’s a lot of emotional music cues in this one.” No shit.

9:00 – Long discussion of how many people die in amusement parks. It’s far more interesting than what’s going on in the episode.

10:45 – Laughter at the fact that Marge’s concern over Ned makes no sense.

11:45 – “We need a commentary for the commentary to find out what we were thinking during these long quiet periods.”

12:20 – Story about the opening of Disneyland.

13:15 – Laughing at the weird improbability of Ned’s stupid theme park.

14:00 – Long, long silence.

15:35 – This could’ve been worse, originally there was going to be some kind of murderer and then Wiggum was going to blow up the park with a celebratory cigar at the gas leak.

17:30 – Yeah, we’re pretty much ignoring all the weird fantasies everyone’s having to discuss anything else, Liza Minnelli, Studio 54, you name it.

18:45 – Long silence broken by one of the animators informing us that they used to have to do ripple effects physically instead of digitally.

19:45 – Still mostly ignoring the episode to talk about how well Tress MacNeille can do hacking cough noises.

20:45 – Long silence, small chuckle, long silence.

21:30 – “I think we just blew off Homer running down the street making insane noises for no reason.” Yes, yes you did.

22:00 – And we’re ending on a discussion of what show followed them in the 8:30 slot in those days.