“This party is over.” – C.M. Burns
Over the years, Zombie Simpsons has gutted a lot of the great characters bequeathed to it by The Simpsons. Moe went from being a bitter bartender running various criminal side businesses to a perpetually lovesick wet blanket. Chief Wiggum used to be a gleefully corrupt and incompetent police chief, now he’s their go-to guy when they want a fat and/or stupid joke and Homer’s already in use. I’m not even sure Patty and Selma are on the show anymore. The less said about what happened to Lenny and Carl the better.
Burns hasn’t been immune to these sad developments. The arrogance, greed and “unbelievable contempt for human life” that used to animate him are all but gone, replaced by bumbling incompetence and a frequent need to impress the people he once considered beneath him. In “The Fool Monty” we can see both of those sad and unfunny traits on full display, and in a situation very similar to one in which the real Burns took a very different course of action.
In “The Fool Monty”, Burns was sad and hosted a party. At that party his guests displeased him and he wasn’t having a good time. In response, he sulked off to his bedroom like some kind of spoiled child and lamented that he had no friends.
Nobody respects tyrants who sulk.
In Season 5’s Machiavellian masterpiece “Rosebud”, Burns was sad and hosted a party. At that party his guests displeased him and he wasn’t having a good time. In response, he ordered a band that wasn’t present killed and brought in hired goons in full riot gear to beat the troublesome partygoers, even though most of them had done nothing to him.
The real Mr. Burns would never be driven from a room by the peasantry.
Things like this are why even when Zombie Simpsons does something semi-decent, like it’s media conspiracy opening, everything rapidly falls apart. None of the characters still possess the traits that made them so funny in the first place. Burns has become a wuss, and an incompetent one at that. It wasn’t just the sulking in his room after – horror of horrors – people were mean to him. He let himself get skyjacked by a fourth grader. He failed to kill himself (or take anyone with him). He fell for the media scare of cat flu (or whatever it was).
Those are not the actions of an evil tyrant, at least, not an evil tyrant this side of Saturday morning kids cartoons. Zombie Simpsons has discarded the funniest characteristics of Burns and many others in favor of whatever they need for a given scene. The result is lifeless characters, stories that can’t go anywhere, and gruel-thin, one-dimensional comedy.
Dead Homer Society 
3 responses to “Compare & Contrast: Burns Hosts a Party”
The good news is the NHC–through episode ranking votes–has the “1/5” option as the most picked choice at the time of the writing.
I understand their concept: the citizen were so pissed off with Burns they weren’t afraid of his gimmicks anymore. And Burns was so old at his routine that he for once has laid an ear to his public. But it was very poorly delivered in this piece, developped too quickly and then regenerated into some pile of crap about Burns becoming a retard. Netiher was the reason he came back to his senses ever explained (I wasn’t in for a chirotherapy-narcotics-alien glow explanation, but still…). The most obvious conclusion to make here is that writers don’t have any fraction of wit left to mind with story scripting, instead they just pitch things into you and consider you to take them for granted. In other words, yes, they take us for idiots (or retards like Burns in this one).
Check out that gradient in the window, and the linework on those coats.
Then have the Rolling Stones killed.