Image photoshopped by Dave.
Just a year after they had Mark Zuckerberg on for his moment of free public relations help, and six years after Time magazine embarrassed itself with its “You” cover, Zombie Simpsons has decided to revisit the idea of social networks. (They’re very in right now.) Despite all that lead time, it’s going to be just as shallow and poorly thought through as you’d expect:
As the mastermind and creator of the online social networking phenomenon SpringFace, Lisa is called to trial when Springfield’s obsession with the site becomes chaotic and dysfunctional. Lisa recounts her story and explains that she created the site after realizing she had no real friends. But as SpringFace expands and Springfield’s fixation with the site causes mass hysteria, Lisa begins to realize that adding thousands of friends online did not compare to having real friendships.
But wait, there’s more! Wasn’t there some other stuff in that movie? Indeed there was:
Later, Patty and Selma compete against the Winklevoss Twins in the rowing event at the 2012 Olympic Games.
Societal breakdown, legal trouble for an eight-year-old, and competitive, co-ed rowing. This is gonna be weird.
Dead Homer Society 
22 responses to “Sunday Preview: The D’oh-cial Network”
It’s come to this: “South Park did it first.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Have_0_Friends
So cosmetics stores have barbershop chairs? And Milhouse dressed up in drag to get a job there (judging by the voice)?
The quick glance at the tiny thin computer having a gigantic box in the garbage was pretty well done, I have to admit, and that Ralphism was decent.
Well, that was a mess. Good luck on CN, boys. Better you than us.
Nothing. Happened.
NOTHING.
HAPPENED.
The whole episode revolved around Lisa on trial…THEY NEVER EXPLAIN WHY. THIS EPISODE MADE NO SENSE.
Oh, and the episode was too short! So there was not one, but TWO shorts after the end of the main story! The bit with Patty & Selma rowing the Winklevoss twins, and that…weird…Tim Burton-esque story.
Yeah, they tried every “let’s stretch the episode out because we can’t write good stories” trick in the book for this one: The full theme, Long couch gag, stretching out jokes, and those two bits at the end. And none of it was clever! It was all lazy writing!
I’m at a loss to review this because it made my brain melt. I’ll just quote Dr. Nick:
“What the hell is that!?”
Yeah, this was pretty bad even for Zombie Simpsons standards. Everything felt padded, and one act felt much shorter than usual. If you can’t get any more good material out of Facebook, find better subjects to make fun of. This is just going to feel dated a few years from now, but I guess that’s par for the course.
Though the “I just downloaded Sofia Coppola’s latest movie, and I’m going to speed it up by 20x so I can watch it like a normal movie” was probably the only genuine laugh I got out of this episode. It didn’t make up for the gift card memoriam bit, which really did feel like a less wacky Family Guy cutaway gag. Considering all the needless padding, I’m surprised they didn’t rip that show off even further by showing a full-length live action music video in the middle.
The Sofia Coppola quote is great, because it reminds me of a guy I used to know who thought himself to be a film “expert” because he owned nothing but Criterion DVD’s. Someone told me later he actually found many Criterion films boring and would watch them at 3x or something just to say he had seen them.
But Barnes & Nobel and FAO Schwarz aren’t dead…
This is the Cow Tools of this decade.
Hah, gonna have to disagree with everyone so far, this episode actually had a few decent scenes and lines. I mean, the story and premise made no sense, it was completely “What-the-fuck?” (especially all the endings… and ESPECIALLY the end itself), but I thought it was more entertaining than anything else since, uh, the John K. opening. I dunno, I didn’t think it was near as bad as any of the other episodes this season.
I also want to note that I hate cell phones, facebook/twitter/most forms of social networking (blogs and torrents and Soulseek and last.fm all rock though) and think it’s one of the main contributors in the breakdown of society, but that really has nothing to do with my feelings towards this episode’s premise, which feels stupid and dated.
In spite of that, I still honestly thought individual scenes weren’t too bad. I dunno. It got worse as it went along, but it was just so weird to be almost decent.
I hate twitter so much it’s so annoying and I wish I never got facebook or used it as much as i did… :/ you can’t replicate yourself online and I hate how facebook tries to push that false philosophy on it’s users! :@
Hmm another olympics themed episode?? :S and since when are Patty and Selma healthy enough to compete in any sporting event? :S and lastly Krusty spoke about making year old references due to production time of the episodes so making this episode is already too insane and lazy! Argh I really hope that the 500th episode was written by all the good old writers!
So many not-real brands so far even tho banana republic, blockbustser and facebook have been established in previous episodes and lastly cropduster video… WTF!
Oh boy not-lego and not-star wars makes another unwanted appearance
Oh and the cursed not-apple
Lackluster Video was a better name parody, and I’m pretty sure that came from a ZS episode too.
It did it was an episode from Season 15.
The actual episode ran 3 minutes short just like Family Guy’s ‘PTV’ but Family Guy got around it much better than this trainwreck and did anyone notice how the audience and seating by the Thames disappeared after the establishing shot. And lastly I’m going to assume that all the IP addresses in Springfield can’t access Facebook and Twitter and have to use a local copy of it??? even tho YouTube was accessible last week (despite being called MyTube on Millhouse’s computer)??? GAHH! THIS SHIT EXCUSE OF IT’S FORMER SELF IS FULL OF HOLES YET THE NUMPTYS AT FUX WON’T CANCEL IT!! Some Bosom Buddies rip-off on ABC got cancelled after 2 episodes which makes me wonder if ZS did episodes as lame as their it they could get away with it which is the only reason the show is still on the air despite being abysmal is that it looks like the great old show known as The Simpsons.
AHHH RANT OVER sorry about that people.
Aside from the Blue-Haired Lawyer being a complete pain in the ass, my major complaint is with the episode ending (it has nothing to do with it being short).
It’s Janey Powell. After proving that she is complete fickle, fair-weathered, and poor acquaintance (not even a friend) to Lisa, she suddenly out of nowhere (like it’s nothing) decides to be friendly to Lisa. This makes no sense at all. Seriously, is that the best Fox can come up with!? You know, it would’ve been more believable if Allison Taylor had stepped up to the plate. She wouldn’t even need Winona Ryder (or the crappy Pamela Hayden voiceover from “Last Tap Dance in Springfield”) Just do what was done in “Lard of the Dance”. Sound-alikes are all the rage nowadays (it works for Kermit, Bugs, and Goku). However apparently, friends like Allison and Juliet Hobbes (Emily Blunt) are such one-timers. And we wouldn’t get a brand-new voice actor to join the cast for the purpose of being Lisa’s friend, since Fox likes to cheat the voice actors salary, or else Maggie Roswell wouldn’t have quit and Maude would still be alive.
It seems that The Simpsons series has less respect for Lisa in her own episodes than Family Guy has with Brian Griffin. The only time Lisa should receive hate is when she is being an unsympathetic jerkass to her brother, Bart in episodes like “O Brother, Where Bart Thou”. But for one thing. you cannot blame her site for Springfieldian negligence, recklessness, and irresponsibility in blogging while driving. And besides, Facebook (or any social site phenomena) is too overrated anywhere.
Still, Lisa truly needs a REAL friend, like Huey Freeman needs Michael Caeser.
Yalp otni kcab semoc yknats ahtnamas erehw s’taht ebyam.