“I specifically requested no romantic music!” – C.M. Burns
Year: 2010
Reading Digest: Block Quote Filler Edition (with Small Update)
I don’t know if it’s just a natural slowdown at the end of the year or what, but I just didn’t come across the usual volume of Simpsons related stuff this week. Fortunately, I quoted liberally from what I did find and gave this the appearance of substance rather than the substance of substance. Uh oh, maybe Zombie Simpsons is rubbing off on me. Anyway, there is some neat stuff this week, including stories about Groening, Simon, and some humorously erotic fan art. Enjoy. [Note: After I decided to use this image for the header I checked to see if…
Behind the Scenes
For some more Simpsons Day YouTube fun, here are a couple of very old behind the scenes videos. This first one is really cool. It’s a home video tour of Klasky-Csupo studio back at the very beginning of the show. I have no idea where it came from, and it isn’t really informative per se, but it is fascinating. These are the rooms those early episodes were drawn: There are a lot of familiar names, plus late 80s fashions and gizmos, on display. And, wow, David Silverman looks…
Groening on The Tonight Show in 1991
On Simpsons Day last year I posted an old video of Groening on Letterman right before “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” premiered. He wasn’t exactly camera comfortable then. Here’s an interview with him from The Tonight Show in 1991 (this must be Leno guest hosting for Carson), and he’s got his shtick down much better. This has to be shortly after the premier of the third season when the show couldn’t get a bigger, and even then Groening only rates as the third guest. What’s funny is…
Quote of the Day
“Now whatever you do, boy, don’t squirm. You don’t want to get this sucker near your eye or your groin.” – Tattoo Removal Guy Happy Simpsons Day everybody!
Dead Homer Society Xmas Gift Guide
“Human roaches, feeding off each other’s garbage, the only thing you can’t buy here is dignity.” – Mayor Quimby It is the stated position of the Dead Homer Society that the fount of filthy lucre that is crappy Simpsons merchandise is a major reason behind the continued existence of Zombie Simpsons. Merchandise generates twice as much cash as the television show, and the continued production of new episodes has been explicitly linked by people at FOX to licensing revenue. And while one person’s purchasing decisions wouldn’t even register as a rounding error on that mountain of money, why buy things…
Quote of the Day
“But surely you can’t put a price on your family’s lives!” – Ex-Con Home Security Guy “I wouldn’t have thought so either, but, here we are.” – Homer Simpson
Crazy Noises: Donny Fatso
“Alright, are you willing to go undercover to nail this creep?” – Kent Brockman “No way, man! No way, man! Get yourself another patsy, man! No way am I wearing a freakin’ wire!” – Homer Simpson “Alright alright alright, would you be willing to wear a hidden camera and microphone?” – Kent Brockman “Oh, that I’ll wear.” – Homer Simpson In our ongoing mission to bring you only the shallowest and laziest analysis of Zombie Simpsons, we’re keeping up our Crazy Noises series for Season 22. Since a podcast is so 2004, and video would require a flag, a fern…
Quote of the Day
“It’s not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of teevee a day.” – Homer Simpson
Compare & Contrast: Homer and the FBI
“We have places your family can hide in peace and security: Cape Fear, Terror Lake, New Horrorfield, Screamville.” – FBI Agent “Ohh, Ice Cream Ville!” – Homer Simpson “No, Screamville.” – FBI Agent Like a lot of Zombie Simpsons episodes this season, there is more than one Simpsons episode to which I can compare “Donnie Fatso”. As has been pointed out in comments, the similarity to “The Trouble with Trillions” is uncanny, and not in a good way. There’s also the epic fail of Homer’s catchphrase toupee camera, something that the hat from “Homer and Apu” would consider far beneath…
Quote of the Day
“Listen guys, I was thinking, um, unless you feel weird about taking money from a kid, I thought maybe . . .” – Bart Simpson “I wouldn’t feel weird, would you?” – Bum #1 “No, I’m comfortable with it.” – Bum #2 Happy Birthday Greg Berg! (At least, I think it’s his birthday. It’s been removed from his Wikipedia page, but on the old revision it says December 14th.)
Original Replaced with Bloated and Dull Facsimile
“Father McGrath, I thought you were dead!” – Soap Opera Babe “I was!” – Father McGrath In addition to taking up an enormous amount of barren screen time, last night’s death and immediate resurrection of Fat Tony was so blisteringly stupid that I’m not even sure which TV Trope applies. There are a lot of them about death and hacktacular resurrection, but a quick search didn’t turn up one where a long lost relative shows up, does nothing, and then becomes the replacement. The closest similarity that came to mind was Beerfest (which is the only non-Super Troopers movie from…
Quote of the Day
“Marge, what can we do?” – C.M. Burns “Well, you could give them healthier snacks, theme days . . .” – Marge Simpson “You mean like, Child Labor Day?” – C.M. Burns “Actually, I was thinking of funny hat day.” – Marge Simpson
Sunday Preview: “Donnie Fatso”
You thought you could saunter off into the holiday season without another episode of Zombie Simpsons, didn’t you? Well guess again. As if last week’s Katy Perry nonsense weren’t enough, tonight we’ve got a gritty, guest star-filled crime drama called “Donnie Fatso.” Okay, maybe it won’t be gritty, but it definitely has Jon Hamm and Joe Mantegna. From Simspsons Channel: Donnie Fatso airs tonight in North America. Homer spends New Year’s Eve in the Springfield Penitentiary after getting caught bribing an official. An FBI investigator (Jon Hamm) offers to reduce his jail time if Homer agrees to go undercover as…
Rehashing the “Bart Show” Myth
“Homer, I’d like you to remember Matthew 7:26, the foolish man who built his house on sand.” – Rev. Lovejoy “And you remember . . . Matthew . . . 21:17.” – Homer Simpson “‘And he left them and went out of the city into Bethany and he lodged there.’?” – Rev. Lovejoy “Yeah, think about it.” – Homer Simpson I greatly enjoyed Splitsider’s “Classic Simpsons Week” series. On the whole, it was a nice look back that didn’t sugarcoat just how far the series has fallen from grace. I didn’t agree with every opinion presented, but such is the…
Quote of the Day
“I’d like twenty-five copies on Goldenrod.” – Lisa Simpson “Right.” – Copy Store Clerk “Um, twenty-five on Canary.” – Lisa Simpson “Canary.” – Copy Store Clerk “Twenty-five on Saffron.” – Lisa Simpson “Mmm-hmm.” – Copy Store Clerk “And twenty-five on Paella.” – Lisa Simpson “Okay, one hundred yellow.” – Copy Store Clerk
Simpsons History: There Never Was a Shift to Homer
Last summer, I wrote a post demonstrating that the idea that The Simpsons had once been Bart centric and then became Homer centric was nothing more than a myth. I went through Seasons 1 and 2 and tallied the episodes as either Bart centered, Homer centered, or centered around neither or both of them. Obviously such categorizations reflect my opinion, but you’d be hard pressed to tilt more than an episode or two this way or that. Take “Principal Charming” for example. I counted it as Both/Neither because while Homer has to search for a man for Selma, Bart’s the…
Quote of the Day
“Our city will not negotiate with terrorists. Is there a city nearby that will?” – Mayor Quimby
Reading Digest: Mammary Euphemism Edition Part 2
“Bart, you really shouldn’t be looking through other people’s things . . . find anything good?” – Lisa Simpson “I said it before and I’ll say it again: aye caramba!” – Bart Simpson As expected, the appearance of Katy Perry in the flesh on Zombie Simpsons sent the signal-to-noise ratio of Simpsons content on the internet plummeting. And, just like last time, the number of euphemisms for mammary glands in the English language continues to impress. You will find none (well, almost) of that below. Instead we’ve got some fan art, some excellent usage, a homicidal looking Lisa doll, and…
Quote of the Day
“It’s not my nature to complain, but so far today we’ve have three movies, two filmstrips, and an hour and a half of magazine time. I just don’t feel challenged.” – Lisa Simpson “Of course we could make things more challenging, Lisa. But then the stupider students would be in here complaining, furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the situation.” – Principal Skinner