Two more episodes to go this year. Hold your nose because they aren’t going to get any better:
When the Simpsons discover a collection of keys to every door in Springfield, Lisa stumbles upon an eerie hidden classroom beneath Springfield Elementary School. When she shares her discovery with Principal Skinner, the secret room mysteriously disappears and he takes the only key away. A determined Lisa uses her detective skills to lead her back to the room to solve an old school mystery.
I do so enjoy the mystery episodes, all those opportunities for fake tension and string music. On the plus side we do have a properly bloodied promo image.
Dead Homer Society 
17 responses to “Sunday Preview: 500 Keys”
Christ, a new-episode promo image and there are no guest stars to be seen?? Amazing!
Well… it’s not much, but I’ll say that this is the most promising preview of the entire season. No stupid guest stars, no inane tie-ins to year-old fads, no inane tie-ins to decade-old fads, no instant out-of-the-blue talents. I’m not expecting it to be “good,” per se, but maybe it could be mediocre? Do I dare watch and find out?
OK, I watched it. It sucked. I was completely disappointed.
Three dull, very mediocre plots, all tied together to make one fairly miserable episode. It’s about average for this season, but… ugh. Why can’t they even do a fucking mystery well? I mean, honestly.
At the very least, I don’t see it being worse than *holds back vomit* Krabappel and Flanders ending up together.
You know, this episode wasn’t too bad for Zombie Simpsons.
Gotta give em credit for the Kristen Schaal Chalkboard gag. That was pretty clever.
I agree. Sure, there are plenty of ZS moments but also some moments that made me chuckle slightly. For example, HANK SCORPIO (which apparently was Albert Brooks), the simple couch gag, Snake crawling under Wiggum, Bart asking which video game system the blimp game was on, the key party exchange (minus the flashback), and the callback to “Blood Feud” were all enjoyable.
I did cringe, however, at the part where Rod butchered the classic line by instead saying “Jesus cries blood every time you lie.” But hey, at least it was sort of a callback…
I have to say that this is one of the best Zombie Simpsons episodes to date, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to The Simpsons.
Yeah, they recycled that classic Rod line but tried to change it just enough so casual fans wouldn’t notice but ended up butchering it.
The opening scene where Homer’s drives across “Suicidal Idiot Path” also felt like a recycled gag from Mr.Plow when Homer was driving his plow to save Barney. In this episode he leaned his ass out the window to balance the vehicle and keep it from going over the cliff, whereas in Mr.Plow he turned the dial on the radio. Once again, it was a recycled gag that wasn’t nearly as funny as the original.
I did laugh however at Homer’s message to Barney as he was flying away in the Duff Blimp. I’m a sucker for any of Homer’s quick parting words whenever he’s fleeing the scene. My favorite being: “Marge, we’re going out! If we don’t come back, avenge our deaths!” I think that was the Beer Baron episode. Not sure.
Overall, I thought it was one of the better episodes this season. At least there were no trendy guest stars. Although, Zombie Simpsons on it’s best day still isn’t as good as classic era Simpsons on it’s worst day.
The description bought me.
Now let’s see the whole thing…
…aaaaand nope. Didn’t cut it.
But I liked Chalmers’ phrase about “out of 14 schools I supervise” (o rly? Does it take him 20 years each?) “for SOME reason, it’s always the Simpsons kids”. Whoa, even zombies start realizing that they’re zombies now.
Maybe it’s progress?
Okay so this is not the title for the 500th episode but without any guest stars this might be a blast to the past.
Erm, why did the series suddenly decide Nelson was held back a bunch of times? Wasn’t that Kearney’s role before?
As for the episode, the only laughs I got out of it were Nacy Drew suggesting Lisa take advice from the Hardy Boys only to find they’re dead (though the second joke killed it) and Otto saying “Maybe we’ll fall really slow like in Inception.” Apart from that? Bo-ring!
See, like I said before, both jokes you refer to are time based (on today’s interests). If the show would’ve gone more in that vein, we’d get more laughs.
For the record, bringing back Hank Scorpio for a 2 second long montage at the opening is NOT going in that vein.
This episode was so, so bad. As mentioned above at least there wasn’t any terrible celebrity voices this time around. I’m anxious to see what the ratings will be since it seems ZS has been coasting on that shit for over two years. I’m not going to run through the entire episode or anything but what especially bugged me was the unfunny “wacky” car shenanigans about 1 minute into the episode. Then if that wasn’t enough Homer has unfunny “wacky” blimp shenanigans for a good chunk of the remainder. I don’t think anybody finds this shit funny and we all just sit through it waiting to get to something else. I’m pretty sure the people who wrote it didn’t find it funny either and were just writing script filler.
There’s just nothing to say anymore. Watch any given Simpson episode before season 10. Then come back to this. This show was stripped of any wit or satire it ever had. Any cleverness it ever contained is gone and now we’re left with an something indistinguishable from a low budget Nicktoon. I’ve always said this show wouldn’t be so insulting if they just re-branded it. These episodes are void of any real wit or snark, stop telling people this is The Simpsons when it’s not.
Does this show HAVE extras anymore? It seems like they just grab whatever popular side character they can think of and shove them into a scene whether the place, time or dialogue fits or not. This seemed overly apparent in this episode.
Also what was going on with Otto’s voice? Did something happen to the voice actor?
“Also what was going on with Otto’s voice? Did something happen to the voice actor?”
Bingo! Now I hear his voice getting weird too. I think Shearer’s really too old to do Otto anymore. To say it was his ripoff of Spinal Tap satire at some point…
But yeah, they should find their new Otto voice. Also, it’s still amazing how Shearer gets away with other voices too, like he can still do Lenny and Burns, for example.
When did Lisa start playing the violin? Was that just for this episode?
Well, she was a deft hand on the bass guitar in “Whacking Day” and a six-string guitar in “Last Exit to Springfield.” I guess she’s multi-talented but generally favours the saxophone.
Hey, i would like to download the the violin end credits theme, can anyone help me out with it please ? Or a link to download an mp3 version of it would be really appreciated. thanks.