“These days people like observational humor, about things they deal with in everyday life.” – Jay Leno
“Oh yeah, you mean like when your lazy butler washes your sock garters, and they’re still covered with schmutz?” – Krusty the Klown
“Well, kind of.” – Jay Leno
It’s somewhat refreshing, if still well short of entertaining, when Zombie Simpsons drops the charade and just makes hacktacular Los Angeles/show business references. Once the episode got rolling with Krusty and Joan Rivers, they just went with it, basically ignoring the actual Simpsons except to note that they kept attending Krusty’s shows. It was strange, but it wasn’t really better or worse than most Zombie Simpsons episodes. Though I did get a little thrill out of seeing Krusty say that long production times made their parodies look “dated and hack-y”. Indeed.
The most frustrating aspect of it all was the giant whiff on making fun of HBO/Showtime/etcetera. Those networks are practically begging to be made fun of, but Zombie Simpsons just tiptoed around them, again replacing actual mockery with gentle fluffing. I mean, look at this:
Ooh, burn.
Is that supposed to be a joke? Is that supposed to be anything other than an acknowledgement that The Sopranos was HBO’s biggest show for a long time? Where’s the poke at the arrogance of selling every show as an event? Where’s the mockery of the audience? The whole concept was basically a love note to premium cable channels and show biz navel gazing. Seen in that light the cameo by one of the Entourage guys is ironically amusing, though probably not for the reason Zombie Simpsons intended.
Anyway, the numbers are in and thanks to a big football lead in last night’s Zombie Simpsons episode caused 9.01 million people to wish they could cancel FOX the same way they can cancel HBO. That is the highest number for them all season, but since most weeks don’t feature a late national game between the undefeated Super Bowl champs and the biggest market in the country (that for some reason was still going on well past 7pm), I’m not worried about an overall turnaround for Season 23. This is why we have averages, and Zombie Simpsons’ are still terrible.
Dead Homer Society 
17 responses to “Dated and Hack-y”
Those HBO stills were definitely a wasted opportunity for parodies or even a caricatures. You know, something funny. I think they even just used actual Ricky Gervais Show footage.
Hmmm most likely caricatures seeing as Entourage was mentioned and shown :S and oh yh i noticed that too [another major facepalm]
[…] Read the rest here: Dated and Hack-y « Dead Homer Society […]
>Is that supposed to be a joke?
I find myself asking that with each and every new Simpsons episode. We’re supposed to laugh because oh, it’s the Sopranos drawn as Simpsons characters or oh look, it’s Itchy and Scratchy but they’re parodying something.
So Itchy is a Nazi Sympathizer?
That all depends on whether or not “Nazi Supermen Are our Superiors” is considered canon to Itchy & Scratchy’s filmography.
Compare and Contrast time on television parodies?
Or the last time Zombie Simpsons went to the museum of television?
and tv ;)
If HBO was called anything else in the episode it’ll be a MAJOR facepalm seeing as HBO has already been established in their Universe and was The Sopranos given a different name because once again that along with Sex and the City was established as existing in their universe as well in season 12 but for some reason there was a not-sex and the city in season 13 :S lastly remember the painful not-Wii episode, it would have been halfway-decent if it involved lisa not having enough money for the Wii so she has to go to a crappy store to get an off-brand version which has major faults and which piss the old people off so they ditch it and Lisa learns a lesson about getting genuine products and as for the whole not-pixar part it would have been better if they were a cheap-ass mock company cashing in on pixar’s success AHHH rant over time to watch this episode now (oh god help me)
A moe gets a cell-phone clip on hulu hmm? and was the showing the 3 stooges skeletons necessary :/
Ok wtf is schiket (spelling?) night meant to be a “parody” of and TeleMundo and ESPN have been established in the simpsons universe :S and HBOWTIME omg hahahahahaha NOT! seriously i cannot wait for the crazy noises and i got a good laugh out of your bellybutton chalkboard at the top
Hah! Bada-Bang! See, ’cause the strip club on The Sopranos was called the Bada-Bing! They changed the I to an A! What cutting-edge satire!
Seriously, every time I read one of these aftershow posts, I realize just how glad I am to not be watching Zombie Simpsons anymore.
As quagmire would say “everyone knows what they mean” and i want verification on that ricky gervais show footage and i hope it gets mentioned in the crazy noises
Ah! I was trying to look up that Krusty/Jay Leno quote a couple of weeks ago. One of the commenters made the point that the longer a TV show goes on for and the more successful it becomes, the less the writers are able to relate to the lives of average individuals. That quote sums it up perfectly.
Hilarious post. I think I read once Sopranos is the most popular show of all TIME, critically and financially speaking. Still, The Simpsons can’t make fun of anything in any compelling way nowadays, and they wait like 4 years after the series finale to do it.
HBO sucks now. Though The Wire was one of the best things ever created by humankind, a few years ago.
I think the most they ever did with the show was re-creating the Sopranos’ opening in Season 13 (and thus, we see the origins of that lazy ZS trademark.)