“Don’t worry honey, I’m sure your father is . . .” – Marge Simpson
“Maybe . . . No . . . That’s a long shot . . . Bingo.” – Marge’s Brain
“Don’t worry, he’ll be here.” – Marge Simpson

In our continuing mission to bring you only the finest in low class, low brow, and low tech internet Simpsons commentary we’re bringing back our “Crazy Noises” series and applying it to Season 21.  Because doing a podcast smacks of effort we’re still using this “chatroom” thing that all the middle schoolers and undercover cops seem to think is so cool.  This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “carnivorous”).

Dave couldn’t make it this week.  He was in a bar letting strange men buy him drinks, apparently that’s more fun that reliving the 22-minute wasteland of “American History X-Cellent”.  I can’t say I blame him.  Minus one third of our complement we only went for about half our usual length.  Does that mean Dave is responsible for more chat than we are?  Or does it just mean we’re lazy?  You decide.

Charlie Sweatpants: Okay, so ready to get started?

Mad Jon: ready enough

Charlie Sweatpants: Without using the words "awful", "reprehensible", or "tortuous", describe this episode.

Mad Jon: Carnivorous

Charlie Sweatpants: Good one.

Mad Jon: My soul has been left half eaten and cold on a cheap paper plate

Charlie Sweatpants: Bummer.

Mad Jon: I don’t even know where to begin. This was not only boring, and unoriginal, but also unorganized and almost offensive to gays, there I said it.

Charlie Sweatpants: Because of Smithers?

Mad Jon: More of because of the bar scene where homer was flashing Smithers. Also Smithers was terrible on his own.

Charlie Sweatpants: Oh man, I forgot about the flashing thing, that was horrible.

Mad Jon: I had the feeling that this episode was originally written for season 20, for some reason it has that kind of feel to it, but then they decided it was too awful, and canned it. Only to bring it back now.

Charlie Sweatpants: That whole scene was a mess. I mean, Smithers ducks out for a phone call and they get caught talking about him? Soap Operas have more realistic turning points.

Mad Jon: And better reactions to drama

Charlie Sweatpants: I can’t really tell Season 20 and 21 apart.

  Second that.

(about the reactions to drama)

Mad Jon: I can. 20 has a distinct flavor that to me tastes like the ashamed feeling I had the first time I got caught peeling one off.

Charlie Sweatpants: And 21?

Mad Jon: 21 feels more like I’ve been a hooker for 5 years… I’m still young and could probably turn my life around at a community college, but we all know it’s too late. And that’s the saddest part of all.

But I digress.

  There is a lot more anger as opposed to confusion with 21.

Charlie Sweatpants: And you’ve only been watching the last couple seasons of Zombie Simpsons, I hate to think what you’d feel like if you’d sat through all of 12+.

Mad Jon: Yeah, that’s an ugly thought.

Charlie Sweatpants: But we digress…

  Bringing us back to the topic of sudden, pointless character changes, they’re getting really clumsy at swapping Burns from good to evil and back again.

Mad Jon: I can’t even tell anymore. I think he is a new type of thing. Some sort of evil good guy.

  Like when Jesus ran that ponzi scheme.

Charlie Sweatpants: They do it at the end of "Rosebud" with about three lines of dialog, by the end of "Team Homer" it’s a quick change of heart. Now he has to get green electro-puke sucked out of him so he can be good for about six minutes.

  Jesus would like to assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes you’ve heard about. His model is the lower case "t".

Mad Jon: Was that the same guy who was the big black dude in the green mile? It didn’t sound like him, but who knows what that dude’s up to nowadays.

  "t" for time to leave…

Charlie Sweatpants: Michael Clarke Duncan was the guy in Green Mile, but IMDB says he’s never been on Zombie Simpsons.

Mad Jon: I think he even points it out in the end of Team Homer. If I only knew then what I know now…

Charlie Sweatpants: But the whole Burns in prison thing was a waste.

  Burns gets saved, Burns has a small montage, Burns immediately turns evil again.

Mad Jon: Well, they had to start and end and have a middle of the episode somewhere. I think your opening to this weeks Synergy was dead on.

Charlie Sweatpants: If they had any sense of pacing left they’d have done all that in about thirty seconds.

  The whole "Smithers as tyrant boss" was a complete waste as well.

They only showed them working for one scene (which was shorter than the oh so clever reveal in the bar) and they weren’t doing anything.

Mad Jon: I definitely had even more of a "c’mon lets move on" feeling than I usually do with zombie episodes.

Charlie Sweatpants: The "asbestos" joke took forever, and had been done twice between Seasons 2 and 6, and much better.

Mad Jon: Remember the days when Lenny was put in charge by the Germans? ahh, sweet memories.

Charlie Sweatpants: No, that was the bank.

Mad Jon: Oooh, you’re right. Where am I?

Charlie Sweatpants: Three beers deep?

Mad Jon: Three?

  Anyway, I didn’t catch the Asbestos joke the first time since I stopped paying attention 20 seconds in.

Charlie Sweatpants: Well, there really isn’t much else, unless you want to talk about the B plot with the ant farm.

Mad Jon: Wait, the part where Bart and Lisa have ants and then don’t?

Charlie Sweatpants: All that happens in this whole episode is Burns has a dumb Fourth of July party (total waste), Burns goes to jail, Burns gets out of jail.

Mad Jon: I guess that was a plot wasn’t it

Charlie Sweatpants: Plus the B plot. There just wasn’t much here.

Mad Jon: And what was here was in no way organized other than Burn’s getting keen on Jesus.

Charlie Sweatpants: What was with the keen on Jesus thing, anyway?

Mad Jon: I meant to say, Burn’s was evil, then he got keen on Jesus, then he was in charge again.

Charlie Sweatpants: They put Monty Burns in a prison, and all they could think to do was make him Christian for three minutes?

Mad Jon: What was the book title?

  I forget.

Charlie Sweatpants: It was Helter Skelter.

You know, because Charles Manson looks like Jesus.

Mad Jon: Is that a book I should be familiar with?

Charlie Sweatpants: Probably not.

Mad Jon: Good.

Charlie Sweatpants: So is there anything left worth complaining about here?

Mad Jon: I’m almost out of beer…

Charlie Sweatpants: No, I meant about the episode.

Mad Jon: Ahh, no.

  I am out of hate for tonight

Charlie Sweatpants: Good, it’s always bad when you run out of beer before you run out of hate.