“Homer, has the weight loss tape reduced your appetite?” – Marge Simpson “Ah, lamentably no; my gastronomic rapacity knows no satiety.” – Homer Simpson
Month: September 2010
“Tales From the Public Domain” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
“Listen carefully and my words will shape images as clear as any teevee show.” – Homer Simpson This is Season 13’s obligatory “storytelling” episode, where they have three distinct segments. In this case, that means ignoring what’s going on in the episode is a lot easier as they can riff on the source material, so get ready for some half assed analysis of the Iliad and Hamlet. There is also a lot of animation discussion on this one, though it is of the least enlightening kind. There are about four different long discussions that go more or less like this:…
Quote of the Day
“Aww, a gift from my favorite crustacean.” – Lisa Simpson “Um, did you learn that word from a teacher or something?” – Beach Kid “No. No, I heard it on Baywatch.” – Lisa Simpson
Storyboarding the Simpsons Way
“Don’t worry, I just drew up a little blueprint, now, lemme walk you through it. This is the door, he goes through that. This is the roof. And this happy character here is the sun. He shines down on the house, see?” – Homer Simpson This post of storyboarding resources from Dakota State University contains a link to a sweet PDF from AnimationMeat.com that shows various animation layout techniques and shots with examples from the Simpsons. Here’s a sample (click to embiggen): If you’re at all interested in how the show gets animated or presented, this is a really interesting…
Quote of the Day
“Many of our clients find pants confining, so we offer a range of alternatives for the ample gentleman: ponchos, muumuus, capes, jumpsuits, unisheets, muslin body rolls, academic and judicial robes.” – Vast Waistband Salesman “I don’t want to look like a weirdo. I’ll just go with a muumuu.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Compadres, it is imperative that we crush the freedom fighters before the start of the rainy season. And remember, a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the head of Colonel Montoya.” – C. Montgomery Burns “What? Oh, and by that I mean of course, it’s time for the worker of the week award!” – C. Montgomery Burns Happy birthday David Mirkin!
Reading Digest: Sam Simon Knows What’s Up Edition
“Alright leeches, I want you to see what a good writer looks like!” – Roger Meyers Jr. This week we have some excellent usage, shoes, cool fan made stuff in the form of a word poster and some Simpsons checks and, most importantly, Sam Simon telling us what we already know. Enjoy. Via SNPP’s Twitter feed comes the truth from none other then Sam Simon himself: Amen. Check Designs – Seriously well done Simpsons check designs, one each for Bart, Lisa and Homer. Hank Azaria at the WSOP – This is a YouTube video of Hank Azaria talking about how…
Quote of the Day
“All aboard for Shelbyville, Badwater, Cattle Skull Testing Grounds, and Rancho Relaxo.” – Springfield Train Station Announcer
“The Bart Wants What It Wants” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
“Why would anybody wanna touch a girl’s butt? That’s where cooties come from!” – Bart Simpson This is another one of those Season 13 episodes that blazes around at high speeds, shifting gears at random while not doing a whole lot in the a) making jokes or b) making sense categories. It’s also another in the long line of Bart-gets-a-girlfriend episodes and, like most of them, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and involves a lot of awkward pauses and pointless exposition. The commentary does its best to ignore all this and is greatly aided by the presence…
Quote of the Day
“They always told me I was gonna destroy the family, but I never believed it.” – Bart Simpson “That’s okay, Bart, nobody really believed it. We were just trying to scare you.” – Lisa Simpson
Crazy Noises: King of the Hill
There’s no new Zombie Simpsons until, gulp, the end of the month, so we’re going to spend what’s left of 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 on to your dial-up AOL and join us. …
Wednesday, September 15th
Quote of the Day
“Mom, can we talk to you?” – Lisa Simpson “Can’t talk. Keeping myself in a state of cat like readiness.” – Marge Simpson “Uh, neat.” – Lisa Simpson
Crazy Noises: Trash of the Titans
“Gentlemen, I’m pleased to report strong holiday sales from the Christmas-Hanu-Kwanza spend phase, and things look good for the Mom-Dad-Grad gift corridor. Uh, then we’ll have the usual summer lull but, hey, we’re making enough money, right?” – Doomed Executive There’s no new Zombie Simpsons until, gulp, the end of the month, so we’re going to spend what’s left of 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…
Quote of the Day
“Hmm, sounded large when I ordered it. (sighs) I can’t make hide nor hair of these metric booby traps.” – C. Montgomery Burns
“Brawl in the Family” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
Image shamelessly stolen from IMDB. “Why don’t we let our guest do it?” – Lisa Simpson There isn’t much to say about this commentary, mostly because guest commentator Delroy Lindo (who did a voice for this episode) basically hijacks it to play Twenty Questions. On the whole this is not a terribly bad thing, it’s mildly entertaining to listen to. But it also means that there isn’t much here for the Simpsons fan, as the commentary turns into every Al Jean interview you’ve ever read. Lindo asks about the history of the show; he asks about why there are so…
Quote of the Day
“My wife and kids stood by me. On the way home I realized how little that helped.” – Homer Simpson
Woo-Hoo Football Is Back!
The first real day of the NFL season gets started in about ten minutes. The above image is a relatively accurate portrayal of what I’ll be doing for the next eleven hours or so. If my heart clogs, I have beer to put out that fire. Should you not care about the NFL, or find yourself with a little downtime between games today, please enjoy this list of every NFL team matched up with a Simpsons character (via). I particularly like Al Davis with Captain McAllister and Patty & Selma with Romeo Crennel and the Great White Fail.
Quote of the Day
“You’re sending us to a doctor who advertises on pro wrestling?” – Lisa Simpson “Boxing, Lisa, boxing, there’s a world of difference.” – Homer Simpson
Stylized Simpsons
I found this when I was doing Reading Digest this week, and it is simply too cool not to have its own post. I’ll let The Be Rad Blog explain: I am big on a lot of geeky stuff and when I came across Sound Of Design’s Flickr profile I was in awe; it’s an eyegasmic gold mine. Ty Lettau has created hundreds of minimalistic portraits of characters from a plethora of cult classic geek universes. All are displayed in a minimalistic “Cartooned” fashion similar to the classic media in which some of the characters are taken. The entire “Cartooned”…