“But I thought I had you fooled.” – Hollis Hurlbut “You did, until I realized that Jebediah’s confession was saying more than he meant it to.” – Lisa Simpson The other day MovieWeb posted an interview with Al Jean about the Season 13 DVD release and the upcoming Season 22 premier. (Thanks to the usual source, Springfield Springfield’s Twitter feed.) It’s the standard model for a modern media mutual masturbation session. Jean gets his products plugged; MovieWeb gets some pageviews (and an excuse for a borderline obscene number of internal links); everyone goes home just a little bit richer. The…
Month: August 2010
Quote of the Day
“There stands a broken man.” – Chuck “It’s recess everywhere but in his heart.” – Ralph Wiggum
Crazy Noises: Natural Born Kissers
“Oh, we drank so much that night.” – Marge Simpson “Yeah, I thought Bart would be born a dimwit.” – Homer Simpson There’s no new Zombie Simpsons until September, so we’re going to spend the summer overthinking Season 9. Why Season 9? Because we did Season 8 last summer, and Season 9 was when the show started becoming more Zombie than Simpsons. Since we’re too lazy to do audio and too ugly to do video, we’ve booked a “chatroom” (ours is right between the one with the sexy seventh graders and the one with the bored federal agents pretending to…
Quote of the Day
“Hey Mom, Dad’s in a mental institution.” – Bart Simpson “Oh my god, mother was right.” – Marge Simpson
Crazy Noises: Bart Carny
“Why did you shudder just now, Mom?” – Lisa Simpson “I don’t know.” – Marge Simpson There’s no new Zombie Simpsons until September, so we’re going to spend the summer overthinking Season 9. Why Season 9? Because we did Season 8 last summer, and Season 9 was when the show started becoming more Zombie than Simpsons. Since we’re too lazy to do audio and too ugly to do video, we’ve booked a “chatroom” (ours is right between the one with the sexy seventh graders and the one with the bored federal agents pretending to be sexy seventh graders). So log…
Quote of the Day
“That is a rare photo of Sean Connery signed by Roger Moore; it is worth one hundred and fifty dollars.” – Comic Book Guy “What can I get for seventy-five cents?” – Milhouse van Houten “Ugh, you may purchase this charming Hamburglar adventure, a child has already solved the jumble using crayons. The answer is ‘fries’.” – Comic Book Guy
Real Life Mr. Sparkle
We all know Mr. Sparkle as a joint venture of Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern that banishes dirt to the land of wind and ghosts. But it is also the premier window cleaning service for homes and businesses in the greater Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MN area. Seriously: Obviously the website doesn’t contain any likeness or drawings that might be legally actionable, but let there be no doubt about the name: The name “Mr. Sparkle” is a famous reference to “The Simpsons” (it was the name of a mysterious Japanese cleaning product on the show). Is that how that came…
Quote of the Day
“Did you have to be so graphic?” – Marge Simpson “It’s okay, Marge. They pave the way for this kind of filth in school.” – Homer Simpson [Update: The image is an animated .gif, the better, I thought, to capture Homer’s hilarious little motility dance. But it doesn’t seem to be playing on the default page, at least not in Chrome or Firefox. Clicking though, however, does seem to make it play.]
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr User EvelynGiggles. “Hey, Bart dude! Whoa, you look freaked.” – Otto “Hey Otto man, I got a big test that I am not ready for. Could you please crash the bus or something?” – Bart Simpson “Oh, sorry little buddy, can’t do it on purpose. But hey, maybe you’ll get lucky.” – Otto
Quote of the Day
“Hey guys, just so you don’t hear any wild rumors: I’m being indicted for fraud in Australia.” – Bart Simpson “Pfft, that’s no reason to block the TV.” – Homer Simpson
Reading Digest: Sports Writing Edition
“Bad dog! Let go! Bad Santa’s Little Helper! Stop it . . . oh, not the sports section!” – Homer Simpson We have two links this week to pieces of sports writing. Once is coherent and well thought out, the other is not. It goes almost without saying, but the former includes excellent usage and the latter includes poor usage. There’s also a fictional teacher poll, a movie review, misspelled advocacy, vodka, a great tattoo, and lots of excellent usage. Enjoy. The Simpsons Movie Brings the Groove Back – Sort of – An opinion of the movie that’s more generous…
Quote of the Day
“Homey, are you really going to ignore Grampa for the rest of your life?” – Marge Simpson “Of course not, Marge, just for the rest of his life.” – Homer Simpson
How Long Has It Been Since This Show Invented a Character?
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user JS North. (It was the first CC search result for “Ghost Mutt”.) “How ’bout . . . Ghost Mutt?” – Marge Simpson One of the things that set The Simpsons apart from everything else on television, and has since been imitated innumerable times, was the breadth of its supporting cast. Right from the very first episode, when it introduced characters like Barney, Moe, and Flanders, the show went out of its way to take the family sitcom template out of the living room. The depth and distinctiveness of the characters –…
Quote of the Day
“Why, there are no children here at the 4H Club either. Am I so out of touch? . . . No. It’s the children who are wrong.” – Principal Skinner
Mmmm, Pareidolia
“To Marge, I leave my collection of potato chips that resemble celebrities. They’re all here, Otto von Bismarck, Maurice Chevalier, right up to Jay Leno. These chips were my children Marjorie, take special care of them.” – Aunt Gladys [Quote edited on 12 August because our commenters are better at this than I am.] The human brain is adept at seeing patterns even where there are no patterns. Looking at the chip below, I can’t quite agree with this: Drinkers at the Caroline of Brunswick in Ditchling Road, Brighton, were stunned when the star of hit animation show The Simpsons…
Quote of the Day
“I don’t think real checks have exclamation points.” – Lisa Simpson
Programming Note
There won’t be any Crazy Noises this week. We had a schedule conflict and, since we’ve got more weeks left until Zombie Simpsons returns than we do episodes in Season 9 remaining, we were going to have to take one off sooner or later. Which is not to say that things will be going dark around here. Later today we should have a new (and only semi-stolen) segment, and I’m sure we’ll come up with something for the rest of the week. Part Two of Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry for the movie will be done sometime before the end…
Quote of the Day
“There may be a slight ringing in your ears. Fortunately, you’ll be nowhere near them.” – Cecil Terwilliger
Quote of the Day
“Reverend Lovejoy, we need you to help us find a rabbi.” – Bart Simpson “Well, uh, before you make any rash decisions let me just remind you that the church is changing to meet the needs of today’s young christians.” – Reverend Lovejoy
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user geishaboy500. “Uh, I’d like some flowers.” – Homer Simpson “What kind of flowers?” – Howard the Florist “You know, pretty ones, not dead.” – Homer Simpson “Well, we have some beautiful long stem roses. They’re fifty-five dollars a dozen.” – Howard the Florist “One please.” – Homer Simpson