“Funky-See Funky-Do will back to lip-sync another one of their hits right after this.” – “Soul Mass Transit System” Host

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  “Kesha”, from which, as an editorial decision, we’ve decided to leave out the dollar sign).

I would like you to imagine two hypothetical people.  The first is a critically acclaimed and widely respected comedian who’s been popular for well over a decade.  The second is a pop star who has so far put out one hit song.  Now, imagine a hypothetical television comedy program.  Which of these two people would you expect to get top billing on an episode?

If you answered “the comedian”, then you would be hypothetically correct, unfortunately, Zombie Simpsons is only hypothetically comedic.

Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we get started?

Mad Jon: Sure, I want to tell you guys that after the couch scene I had to stop myself from calling you both to say I’m out.

  I refrained from any rash decisions, but it was close

Dave: I felt the same way. Anyone associated with the making of that clusterfuck should be embarrassed.

Charlie Sweatpants: I don’t know, the couch "thing" didn’t bother me that much. This show’s been dead for a long time, dumping perhaps the only remaining connection it had to its former self doesn’t bother me.

(Especially since they went to the HD opening last year.)

Mad Jon: My god. That really was a commercial. I don’t know what this Kesha chick has on what must be several members of various media outlets, but she doesn’t have good music and she is not attractive.

Dave: It was an affront to society, Charlie.

Charlie Sweatpants: Zombie Simpsons is an affront to society. Forgettable pop commercial or not.

Dave: Giving a animated stage to a trampy nobody sets a bad precedent for Americans.

Mad Jon: I am still angry and I watched it almost 3 hours ago.

grrr

Charlie Sweatpants: Sorry guys, I really can’t summon any anger over this.

  Yes it’s cheap, crass, and completely against everything "Simpsons", but how is that different from any other episode?

Mad Jon: It has offended me so much more than a normal zombie opening, I guess that’s all I was trying to say. It was quite visceral.

Dave: This was a concentrated dose of egregiousness, a swift kick to the nuts.

Mad Jon: But anyway I guess we can only kick that ugly horse for so long.

Just ugly.

Dave: Yeah let’s move on. There’s plenty more to bitch about.

Charlie Sweatpants: Hang on, isn’t there at least a chance that something this openly desperate turns off a few more people?

Dave: Or there’s the greater possibility that a new generation of idiots suddenly think the show is hot shit.

Mad Jon: Odds are the people who like Zombie Simpsons also like shitty pop music sung by girls that look like my scrotum stretched out.

Charlie Sweatpants: I see your point. So you guys think this is just part of the plan to hang on to whatever tiny amount of pop culture relevance sustains this show?

Dave: In a very tangible way, yeah.

Mad Jon: I think that as bad as they are at making funny cartoons, they know how easy it is to shoot the fish already in their retard barrel.

Charlie Sweatpants: Wait, the barrel is retarded?

Nevermind.

Mad Jon: Probably based on the contents, I’m sure it rubs off.

Now, based on my anger from the opening, I don’t actually have a good memory of the bomb threat that leads to Ned becoming the camera guy.

Charlie Sweatpants: Burns and Smithers have become considerably less creative and less evil in the way they dispose of nuclear waste.

Mad Jon: Not surprised there…

Charlie Sweatpants: Homer leaves the plutonium in a train station and then the bomb squad blows it up.

Mad Jon: Oh yeah that’s right.

Charlie Sweatpants: I’m not surprised you don’t remember because they never mentioned it once for the rest of the episode.

Mad Jon: Unattended luggage

Charlie Sweatpants: Also, Duffman was there for a second, but he gave no reason for being there and left quickly.

Mad Jon: Didn’t he give out swag? Didn’t Barney win a day with Duffman in an earlier pre-zombie/zombie episode?

Charlie Sweatpants: When Homer goes to New York it’s because Barney sent in all the Duff points, is that what you’re thinking of?

Mad Jon: Yep, that’s the ticket

Charlie Sweatpants: But Duffman at least had a reason for being there.

Dave: Aren’t there multiple Duffmen?

Mad Jon: I dispute your previous reasoning not, I was merely pointing out the fact that once again they weren’t even trying.

Charlie Sweatpants: Dave, I think they mentioned there being multiple Duffmen, but I don’t care enough to take the .8 seconds required to Google it.

Dave: I don’t either and furthermore, it’s not really relevant.

Charlie Sweatpants: So they bring in all these cameras, right?

  Only, Eddie Izzard basically isn’t in the rest of the episode.

Dave: Yes sir. After they bring in the British stereotype.

  So much for that guest role.

Mad Jon: Is that who that was guest voicing?

Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah. For some reason Seth Rogen gets to write his own episode with himself in the starring role, but "cake or death" wasn’t good enough.

Mad Jon: Do you think that guest voices just do it over the phone nowadays? I bet he got the script moments before they started recording.

Charlie Sweatpants: Wouldn’t surprise me.

  But once the cameras do turn on, it becomes another one of those awful Homer and Ned are friends episodes.

Mad Jon: And very much a Ned as Not-Ned episode.

Ned would have just taken his children to the armageddon bomb shelter or something

  That was clearly a job for Mrs. Lovejoy

Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, but that would require them to a) write a female character that isn’t Bart’s love interest, b) give a shit about their characters, and c) pass up all the easy-as-pie Flanders jokes.

  At this point he’s as one dimensional as Ralph and Comic Book Guy.

Mad Jon: That’s really heartbreaking. But I guess it’s that kind of heartbreaking you feel when your drunken wife beating uncle you hate starts doing heroin. You know you should feel bad, but you are so bitter you just wish Flanders was dead.

Dave: Much like the rest of Zombie Springfield, I suppose.

Charlie Sweatpants: But even if they’d kept Flanders for the main crux of the plot, they didn’t have any of the other characters even talk.

Marge was the only one, but she never did anything but start to worry.

Mad Jon: And they said "not pervy" right? Why was Smithers there? The man has the largest collection of Malibu Stacey dolls in the world!

Charlie Sweatpants: Maybe it’s cheaper to use his character model for whatever reason?

Mad Jon: Valid observation

  We still haven’t discussed the hair deal

Charlie Sweatpants: Ugh, that pitiful excuse for a B-plot?

Mad Jon: It’s been 20 years and I think this is the first mention that Lisa is blonde.

Dave: It was game over at the intro for me, guys. I’m just observing and nodding.

Mad Jon: I know your pain.

Charlie Sweatpants: Remember what I said earlier about not being able to write female characters? I submit the one-line debate teacher as Exhibit A, and the three line debate opponent as Exhibit B.

Dave: They were enablers.

Charlie Sweatpants: They were barely props.

And where did this debate team come from? Does it meet in the same room as the other fourth grade?

Mad Jon: That would explain the new brainy student we have never met before.

Charlie Sweatpants: The teacher especially, I don’t think she was even drawn into any of the other scenes.

Mad Jon: Not that I would dream of wasting energy explaining anything Zombie.

Dave: Look, the show had to inject a false sense of outrage and drama. How else were they going to do that without lifeless female characters?

Mad Jon: Couldn’t they have just given Lisa an eating disorder again?

Charlie Sweatpants: They already did that?

Dave: Yep.

Mad Jon: It’s not like they are against doing things over and over.

Charlie Sweatpants: I assume we don’t consider them clever enough to have deliberately paired the music video opening with jokes about airheaded blondes?

Mad Jon: No, that is not the case.

  That would be what we used to call subtle humor. That left this show more than 10 years ago.

Dave: That smacks of effort.

Charlie Sweatpants: Believe me, I didn’t think they did it intentionally. I just wanted to confirm your concurrence.

Mad Jon: That is something South Park would do, and then cover Kesha in a bucket of shit or something in the end, to remind everyone they are capable of all types of humor.

No, Someone at FOX said, "Make all the characters lip sync to this song sung by the ugly daughter of our CFO or we’re all fired."

Dave: Preach on, Jon.

Mad Jon: Preaching is for intangible ideas, I spout facts from my soapbox

Sorry, this is still really bothering me.

Dave: Truth bombs hurt.

Charlie Sweatpants: Okay, so we’re agreed that the music video was a horrible publicity stunt, the guest voice was wasted, the main plot was lazy and repetitive, and the sub plot was even lazier.

Anything else?

Dave: Chalmers.

Mad Jon: The end credits music?

  At least match the songs up. That was sooooo lazy.

Charlie Sweatpants: What are you talking about?

Mad Jon: The music over the end credits was not the Simpsons theme, or related to anything in the episode, or the opening music. Someone hit random on their complimentary iPod from last season and let it fly.

also Chalmers in a dress like Dave said.

Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, the Chalmers thing was bad, but it was that same jock jams song that Duffman was using at the beginning. I agree it was bad, and there really was not one note of the theme song, but it did come from somewhere in the episode.

  And the Chalmers thing wasn’t nearly as bad as the Not Lunchlady Doris thing.

Mad Jon: Well, I stand corrected.

Dave: The jello bit?

Charlie Sweatpants: "Night Court" did a subtler job of replacing its little old ladies.

  The jello bit wasn’t funny on its own, attaching it to Not Lunchlady Doris was even worse.

Mad Jon: Good catch, I forgot about that.

Charlie Sweatpants: And she wasn’t even being her normal, ultra apathetic self.

  She was yelling at the kids to hurry up. The real Lunchlady Doris wouldn’t care.

Mad Jon: She really, really wouldn’t.

Charlie Sweatpants: Also, for reasons of unbelievably lazy staging and scene design, Nelson and Lisa were sitting at the same lunch table for some reason.

Dave: There was a lot wrong with the episode. There, I said it.

Mad Jon: Well that gave Lisa the opportunity to use her reason in front of the debate club person

Charlie Sweatpants: There, I agreed with it.

Mad Jon: or something….

Charlie Sweatpants: But it goes to laziness.

Mad Jon: Fair enough

Charlie Sweatpants: She could’ve still been in the cafeteria, she could’ve been walking by, or at the next table over. But instead they put her at the same table because they just don’t give a shit.

  Setting a scene isn’t something they do any more.

Dave: To your point earlier, Charlie, they’re props. Logic doesn’t have to apply. Just drop and animate, repeat.

Charlie Sweatpants: Pretty much.

Dave: There’s no craft, this is just mass-produced bullshit.

Er, easily-produced.

Charlie Sweatpants: Can’t it be both?

Mad Jon: Testify!