“I’ve got to fire that agent.” – Elizabeth Taylor 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…
Month: January 2011
Quote of the Day
“I can handle that. I’m an expert at phony apologies.” – Bart Simpson “Bart!” – Marge Simpson “I’m sorry.” – Bart Simpson “That’s better.” – Marge Simpson
Compare & Contrast: Gay Bars
“We work hard. We play hard.” – Roscoe In everything but similarity of title, “Homer’s Phobia” is the obvious choice for a comparison episode to “Flaming Moe”. But rather than stacking up the plot structures, characters, and jokes and marveling at how greatly Season 8 towers over Season 22, I want to focus on one small aspect of these two episodes that I think goes a long way toward illustrating the point I was trying to make yesterday. Specifically, it’s easy to see how much more tame and thoughtless Zombie Simpsons is when you compare their gay club, “The League…
Quote of the Day
“Senator Mendoza is one of the most respected citizens in this state, McBain, and yet you ran his limo off a cliff, broke the necks of three of his bodyguards, and drove a bus through his front door!” – Captain “But captain, I have proof that he’s head of an international drug cartel!” – McBain “I don’t want to hear it, McBain!” – Captain
A Flapping Dickey of Outdated Gay Jokes
It goes almost without saying that American culture has changed in a lot of ways since the Simpsons family came on stage in the late 80s. In addition to the usual twists and turns of taste in everything from music and clothing to movies and cars you would expect over any two decade stretch, the last twenty plus years have also seen an enormous expansion in the civic space afforded to gay and lesbian Americans. People who were seen as so culturally toxic that even referring to them on television was all but forbidden in 1989 have become commonplace in…
Quote of the Day
“Wow, what an ending! Who’d have thought Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father?” – Homer Simpson Happy birthday James Earl Jones!
Quote of the Day
“Lisa, Bart, what did you two learn in Sunday school today?” – Marge Simpson “The answers to deep, theological questions.” – Lisa Simpson “Yeah, among other things, apes can’t get into heaven.” – Bart Simpson “What? Those cute little monkeys? That’s terrible, who told you that?” – Homer Simpson “Our teacher.” – Bart Simpson “I can understand how they wouldn’t let in those wild, jungle apes, but what about those really smart ones who live among us, who roller skate and smoke cigars?” – Homer Simpson
Just Because
“I asked for no broth! Away with you, lest my cane find your backside!” – Ralph Wiggum “Mmm, yes.” – Rex
Crazy Noises: Moms I’d Like to Forget
“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…
Quote of the Day
“Where’s Homer?” – Bart Simpson “Your father decided he’d rather come home in a taxi . . . or a police car.” – Marge Simpson [Edited to correct the copy-editing, which is, in general, terrible here.]
Reading Digest: Dueling Videos Edition
“Son, you shouldn’t watch that other channel, it’s only for mommies and daddies who love each other very much.” – Homer Simpson There were two Simpsons YouTube videos this week that garnered quite a bit of attention. Taken together, they make for a rather funny statement on the current status of the show. The first was a clip The Simpsons made back when The Cosby Show finally went off the air. The second is a porn parody of the show slathered in yellow makeup. I’d say that’s about where we are. There’s also some excellent usage and the usual assortment…
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user mike@bensalem. “This year I invested in pumpkins. They’ve been going up the whole month of October, and I got a feeling they’re gonna peak right around January.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Dad, we’ve never been too close, have we?” – Homer Simpson “Not to my knowledge.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
Quote of the Day
“You have any sugar around here?” – Homer Simpson “Sugar? Sure . . . here you go. Sorry it’s not in packages. Want some cream?” – Hank Scorpio “Ah, no.” – Homer Simpson
Compare & Contrast: Marge and Other Women
“Pleased to meet you. You look like such a happy bunch . . . of people.” – Marge Simpson In film criticism there is a concept known as the “Bechdel Test”, which is a kind of quick and dirty measurement of whether or not a movie has any female characters that rise above the level of tokenism or decoration. There are a few variations, but the basic concept is that there needs to be at least one conversation between two named, female characters that isn’t about a male. I was thinking about this during one of the many scenes where…
Quote of the Day
Image shamelessly stolen from worthpoint.com. “How could you spend 4.6 million dollars in a month?” – Marge Simpson “They let me sign checks with a stamp, Marge! A stamp!” – Homer Simpson
Sit, Zombie Simpsons, Sit
“Oh, yes, sitting, the great leveler, from the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, who doesn’t enjoy a good sit?” – C.M. Burns Despite watching it once and fast forwarding through it a second time, I’m still not sure what the main plot of “Moms I’d Like to Forget” was. Most Simpsons episodes since the dawn of the show have had a main plot, sometimes accompanied by a second one that fills in the time or complements the main one in some way. But “Moms I’d Like to Forget” didn’t seem to have an A-plot at all, at best it…
Quote of the Day
“Excuse me Mr. Hutz, are you a shyster?” – Lisa Simpson “How does a nice little girl like you know a big word like that?” – Lionel Hutz Happy 20th Anniversary to “Bart Gets Hit By a Car”! Original airdate 10 January 1991.
Sunday Preview: Moms I’d Like to Forget
Dave has neither power nor internet at his house at the moment, but it’s okay because there is no promo image this week that needs to be zombified in Photoshop. Instead all we have is this from Simpsons Channel: When Bart discovers that a fifth grader has a scar identical to one Bart has, Marge tells him about a club of mothers she was in once where they set playdates for their kids; when she tries to reform the club, things turn out better for Marge than they do for Bart. The channel guide on my television isn’t any more…
Quote of the Day
“Who are you and why are you ruining my retirement party?” – Mimi the Food Critic “I’ll have you know I wandered off from the tour.” – Homer Simpson Happy Birthday Al Jean!