“That must be the happiest kid in the world.” – Bart 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 and some folding chairs from the garage, we’ve elected to use the technology that brought the word “emoticon” to the masses: the chatroom.  Star Trek image macros are strictly forbidden, unless you have a really good reason why Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk.  This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on  “chandelier”).

There’s something unbelievably tepid about most Zombie Simpsons episodes, and “Moms I’d Like to Forget” shares that nervous attitude. It just seems more comfortable neutrally reflecting the world with yellow skin and bad overbites instead of actually making fun of something or someone. Consider that nasty, spoiled kid and his checked out mom in “Marge Be Not Proud” (which is not exactly my favorite episode). The kid in the toy store is really an asshole, and his mom not only doesn’t seem to care, but she looks plenty selfish and narcissistic herself, the kind of parent so self involved that she’s basically indifferent to her own kids. It is a brutal caricature and it extends even to the kids’ names, “Gavin” and “Kaitlin” being the kind of trendy monikers (at least, twenty years ago) bestowed by parents who care more about how their kids reflect on them than about the kids themselves.

None of that is evident anywhere in the other families in “Moms I’d Like to Forget”. Neither the husbands, the wives or the kids stand out, nor are any of them held up for ridicule. There’s no over competitive fathers who push their kids too hard, there’s no backstabbing mother who destroys her friends with gossip, there’s no rotten kid who takes things too far or deliberately fucks with his parents. Instead they’re just bland background characters, recognizable as modern Americans only cosmetically. There are a lot of stereotypes they could have made fun of here.

[Note: Dave couldn’t make it this week.  In fact, this whole week has been something of a clusterfuck.]

Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we begin?

Mad Jon: Sounds good.

Charlie Sweatpants: The opening, with Bart having a long dream sequence which was then followed by an action sequence, a little over the top, yes?

Mad Jon: Yeah, I thought the dream sequence would end with him getting hit in the head by the dodge ball with which he imagined he would secure victory. Imagine my surprise when the 30 second clip was followed by a 30 second action sequence that didn’t really accomplish anything other than an age war.

Charlie Sweatpants: The whole thing was an exercise in time killing. Something that could’ve been done in about thirty seconds was stretched out to a good two minutes.

The sports cliche bit at the end of it didn’t help. Har har, making fun of sports cliches. Someone must’ve caught “Bull Durham” on cable recently.

Mad Jon: I know it was a setup for a ‘plot’, but, like I believe you mentioned, it was a plot that I couldn’t figure out.

Charlie Sweatpants: They’ve had nonsensical plots before, but this was really meandering.

Mad Jon: In fact, I watched that episode yesterday after work, a mere 26 hours ago, and like a dream I am losing the details by the second.

Charlie Sweatpants: They treated the scars like they were a Scooby-Doo mystery, and then the explanation had literally nothing to do with the rest of the episode.

Okay, they got the scars from the sandwich swords, but that had nothing to do with why the moms broke up with Marge. Even the four boys running over to Comic book guy was just random happenstance, it wasn’t precipitated by anything.

Mad Jon: Did we even get anyone’s name?

Charlie Sweatpants: Nope.

Mad Jon: Why on earth would Bart have such ennui hanging out with those particular boys? This is a kid who was happy to wear a kitchen pot on his head and run full speed at his 260lb father.

Charlie Sweatpants: Why was he holding a bunch of remotes in his mouth . . . alone . . . at night . . . in bed?

Mad Jon: Yeah, about that. I don’t know.

Alone in the dark with 8ish remotes in his mouth.

Good thing Lisa is so curious.

Charlie Sweatpants: I got conned into doing a lot of stupid shit by older kids when I was young, but they usually want to see you humiliate yourself.

Mad Jon: But most of the stuff they all did together, that was like the only thing where they where trying to get him to be the chump.

Charlie Sweatpants: That too. As per Zombie Simpsons standards, all comedy opportunities must be wasted and all story points must be non-sense.

But that just led to Comic Book Guy’s awful, awful store scene and even longer flashback.

Mad Jon: That was pretty bad.

Charlie Sweatpants: The first time it was on-screen the idea of a super villain named the Communist Block, with a red square hammer & sickle on his head was kind of funny. After they left it on the screen forever, it became less so.

Mad Jon: It’s been like 10 years and I still can’t get past the writers using auxiliary characters for major plot turns.

I did like the comic book cover.

Overall, however, nothing really bothered me as much as the dads hanging out.

Charlie Sweatpants: Oh, the agony.

Adding: Oh, the wasted comedy.

Mad Jon: Homer didn’t even have a chance to ruin anything. Were we supposed to assume that he had alienated those other men 7 years ago?

Charlie Sweatpants: I guess.

Homer forced to hang out with three guys who don’t like him, how do you not do anything with that?

“Everything you say is asinine” was the closest they came to a joke, and it wasn’t close enough.

If I wanted to see middle aged men whine, I’m sure there are a number of other programs I could be watching.

Mad Jon: I can think of 3 that star Ray Romano

Who was a guest star a few years back.

Not that it is important. Or even necessary to note.

Charlie Sweatpants: Meh.

Mad Jon: I know it’s a cartoon, but if the moms are getting together and the kids are coming along, why on earth did the dads go too? Shouldn’t they have been at a bar or game, or cheating on their spouses or something?

Charlie Sweatpants: That would’ve ruined the tightly written comedy of Homer making noises.

Mad Jon: Oh yes, how could I forget?

You know, I said that the fathers were my least favorite part, but I am torn between that and the ending, now that I think about it.

So because Bart and his friends burned their hands and ruined Cletus’s family’s dinner, the group no longer gets together?

Charlie Sweatpants: Something like that.

Mad Jon: And a ball of fireworks will allow him to stop hanging out with fellow trouble makers?

Charlie Sweatpants: It was never made clear.

Mad Jon: It was frustrating. I don’t like watching Zombie Simpsons, but even more so I don’t like watching them, waiting for the plot to start, and then having them end with no explanation. It’s quite aggravating.

Charlie Sweatpants: It is. But what else is new?

On another topic, I’d like to nominate this episode for the most noticeably aging voices in a while.

Mad Jon: Resolution seconded.

Charlie Sweatpants: Chalmers, Willie, Krabappel, even Marge, they’re really struggling.

Mad Jon: I noticed Willie readily, and Marge doesn’t surprise me either.

Charlie Sweatpants: That scene where she comes home drunk? Kavner just sounded like she was whispering. I love Kavner, and I get that she has to make her voice even raspier to do Marge, but on anything but a flat monotone it becomes really noticeable, and even that has gotten deeper.

Mad Jon: Well, it’s only going to get worse as we go on I suppose.

Charlie Sweatpants: No doubt.

Any final thoughts?

Mad Jon: Meh, maybe they are setting us up for a Chalmers and Skinner spin-off. Being that he still hasn’t left Skinner’s office in like 2 seasons.

Charlie Sweatpants: He does seem to have taken up residence.

Mad Jon: I really miss the surprise visits.

But that’s all I got.

Charlie Sweatpants: All I’ve got is the two things I kinda liked that nevertheless took too long: the couch gag, and Skinner’s old west piano playing.

The couch gag took too long, but it on the subway reading a paper that says “Ottoman Empire Collapses” was funny. It just didn’t need to take that long.

Mad Jon: I agree with the couch gag, it was a little long, but the idea was both cute and relatively original.

Charlie Sweatpants: Ditto Skinner’s old west piano thing. That could’ve ended quickly, instead they had to make it painfully obvious with the wooden chandelier.

Mad Jon: Yep, but I appreciate the effort.

Charlie Sweatpants: Okay, I’m done. Please say that you are too.

Mad Jon: It’s ok Charlie, I’m done.