“The guy’s so high he doesn’t even know that’s Dave!” – Homer Simpson
“Homer? Homer?” – Bobby Mindich
“Homer’s not here, man.” – Homer Simpson
“Okay, very good.” – Bobby Mindich
No sooner do we poke fun at Zombie Simpsons for its complete reliance on jamming the same few characters into any situation than they have Chong audition every third person in Springfield to replace Cheech. There are about five hundred different things they could’ve done there: they could’ve invented new acts, pulled some other old ones out of retirement, created thinly veiled jabs at comedians who’ve long since faded from view and gone batshit crazy (paging Mr. Gallagher). But they didn’t do any of that, instead they went with the shallowest and laziest possible option by dragging their usual characters across the stage to do the same tired old things they always do. In this case it was made even more uncomfortable as they nervously tap danced around concepts like stale comedy and being long past your prime.
Things started in that vein quickly as Marge (for some reason) convinced Homer to go up on stage (for some other reason) and the crowd (for some final reason) quickly assented. It was all downhill from there, including the above mentioned audition, a couple of parodies that were as lifeless as they were long, and the B-plot that reminded me of nothing so much as when Krusty was trying to improvise comedy with a cracked portrait of Eisenhower. Here, laugh at these random objects! The difference being that when Krusty was doing it, it wasn’t supposed to be funny. It was supposed to show what a desperate hack he was. Hmmm.
Anyway, the numbers are in and they are wretchedly atrocious. A piffling 5.45 million viewers wondered if there’s enough weed in all the world to make that funny. That’s the lowest of the season, and the fourth lowest of all time. A few more numbers in this range and we may get our moral victory of seeing Season 22 be the lowest rated ever.
Dead Homer Society 
8 responses to “Meta and Morbid”
Watching this episode feels like watching a roleplay porno movie in which some actors try to take it a tad more seirously than the others, but you still know what happens at the end. It starts in what feels like a setting just to drag Homer into hippie shit, in which he gets stoned without actually getting stoned (don’t we have enough fake pot-induced images to stop laughing at them already?). Then Skinner becomes Sideshow Mel for adults for some reason, probably as desperate to leave Springfield Elementary as eating crap actually suits him better. And finally, a Tracy Ullman reject of a B-plot, comparing MacFarlane’s shows B-plots to which actually makes sense, especially for those who say they are too violent. Make a parody of “The Lord of the Rings” out of this and it would’ve already been laughable. In all… what’s that 80s show they said on “…you disgust me.” I’m fresh out of names.
The ratings probably would have been better if there had been a new Family Guy episode last night.
Ever since this site pointed out that whenever there’s a scene with Skinner, Chalmers can’t be far behind, I’ve been noticing that. Even this episode has Skinner and Chalmers do some pointless back and forth. I remember in one of the DVD commentaries one of the writers admitted that they loved to write scenes for Skinner and Chalmers because they were funny and Azaria (Chalmers) and Shearer (Skinner) had great chemistry with those characters but if I recall the writer also said that was also the reason they didn’t do it often. Obviously that writer is no longer with the show.
That dialogue was as pointless as it could be. In fact it was so stale, that they had to force Chalmers to chuckle at the end. See, when they do it on Family Guy with Peter and Quagmire, when Quagmire throws in a “hah!” at the end, it’s funny because they both smile the whole time. Here Chalmers was undoubiously questioning Skinner about his lousy performance, which is being captain obvious in front of the public, and then, they pass on what seems like a vagina joke and he chuckles. Only three letter for that: W, T and F.
When I read your line about the audition, I thought I’d have a guess about who these characters would be. Then I saw some screenshots, and I realised I was right. The same characters, over and over again.
Uh… what episode is the quote from in this post? I googled and snpp’d it and got nothing. O_O
The one with “Dave’s not here”? It’s from The Front, Season 4 I think.
Any time I use a quote at the top I always use the episode title as a tag. And yes, that was from “The Front”.