“Whoa, I bet the 8-Ball didn’t see that one coming.” – Bart Simpson
“Yeah.” – Milhouse van Houten
With so many years of backstory hanging over its head, Zombie Simpsons often resorts to the inane and bizarre to keep believable and long established relationships fresh. Once upon a time, Moe was Homer’s bartender. Sure, they knew each other a bit better than the average rag and coaster jockeys, but they never strayed too far from the recognizable baseline of bartender-customer. Along the same line, Skinner and Chalmers used to be junior and senior in a dumb bureaucracy and Lenny and Carl used to be office buddies. All of those have been trashed under a half-clever veneer of self knowing television tropes. Homer and Moe are best buddies when they need to be; Skinner and Chalmers are attached at the hip, and Lenny and Carl are . . . whatever they are.
In that same vein, Bart and Milhouse have gone from plausible boyhood friends to an overtly self-aware pair of co-dependent jokers. When The Simpsons still cared about its audience and characters, Bart was the dominant half of a realistic friendship and Milhouse was the forgiving and easily awed sidekick. That’s a pretty good basis for fiction, and it worked for a long time. But even an archetype that durable can only hold out for so many hundred episodes before it becomes a stereotypical hack job. At this point, their roles have gone beyond “well established” to “crap, how do we make this not a complete repeat?”, and that’s the real problem of their half told story in “Moe Goes from Rags to Riches”.
Bart and Milhouse have fought before, many, many times. Sometimes it was a minor part of the episode, like “Bart After Dark” or “A Milhouse Divided”; sometimes it was a major part of the episode, like “Homer Defined” or “Bart Sells His Soul”. But for comparison to “Moe Goes from Rags to Riches”, nothing is closer than “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love”.
In both episodes, Milhouse gets pissed at Bart for taking him for granted. And in both episodes, Milhouse eventually forgives Bart. The difference is in how those things happen, both the falling out and the rapprochement. In The Simpsons, Milhouse gets mad because of a serious betrayal; in Zombie Simpsons, Milhouse snaps with no warning for no real reason. On the other end, Milhouse in The Simpsons sees his beef with Bart resolved; Milhouse in Zombie Simpsons goes with the flow because he knows just as well as the audience that things have to get back to normal.
Sadly, this is what passes for normal these days.
In “Moe Goes from Rags to Riches”, the opening scene is a town meeting at Moe’s that becomes a dance party. (Of course it does.) In the course of said meeting, we see the two of them dancing together to Lionel Richie, and the following exchange happens:
Bart: That’s even sadder than being friends with Milhouse.
Milhouse: You know something, Bart, I’m getting tired of things like that.
Bart: Tired of what? I dump on you and you take it, that’s how friendship works.
Milhouse: Not anymore. Friendship over.
This comes from precisely nowhere. And while you might be tempted to forgive Zombie Simpsons this narrative shortcut because we already know Milhouse resents Bart in general, don’t forget that Bart has said plenty of worse things to Milhouse over the years with no reaction whatsoever. Based on what we know of the two of them, this sudden eruption of pique is entirely out of character. Zombie Simpsons doesn’t give us even a single line where we see Milhouse steaming up before he’s at full spurned-friend boil.
I’m asking for white hot rage and you’re giving me a hissy fit!
By contrast, in “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love”, Milhouse snapping comes with an entire episode’s worth of buildup and occurs even quicker. Instead of a tired, verbose and unexpected exchange, The Simpsons has Milhouse lose it with a single, exposition free word:
Bart: Listen, Milhouse, I got a confession to make. I’m the one who narced on your kissing.
Milhouse: What?!
Not only is this shorter and funnier, but it fulfills the prime commandment of screenwriting, “show, don’t tell”. In Zombie Simpsons, Milhouse tells us why he’s mad, even though Zombie Simpsons is taking for granted that we already know the reason. Here, no explanation is needed because we’ve seen the two characters build up to this over the course of the entire episode. Milhouse’s anger, and his subsequent death grapple with Bart, shows us how pissed off he really is.
Hallelujah, they’ve done it again!
Things get even more embarrassing for Zombie Simpsons as the two move from their confrontation to their inevitable reconciliation. In “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love”, the reconciliation happens quickly; The Simpsons had no illusions about pretending that Bart and Milhouse would end up something other than friends. The tension during their fight – the deliberately overwrought horn music, Bart contemplating smashing his best friend with scissors, a broken bottle, and a brick – is all comedy. The scissors? Sure. But there’s no reason for there to be shattered glass and masonry in Milhouse’s room other than as a gag. The show doesn’t even pretend to imply that Bart’s actually going to use them, so when he finally settles on the Magic 8-Ball as his weapon, it fits. It’s physically plausible and plot relevant (the 8-Ball having predicted their falling out back in Act 1).
Zombie Simpsons lacks anything even remotely resembling that kind of subtlety and relevance. Since they dove into their dead end conflict in the very first scene, they have no story to tell. All they’re left with is a few disconnected set pieces: Bart at Milhouse’s window, Bart breaking in to Milhouse’s room, Bart outside Milhouse’s front door. There’s nothing to these scenes except for Bart and Milhouse exchanging hackneyed, knowing banter like the predicable sitcom characters they’ve become.
Instead of giving us a fun reason for the two of them to be angry at one another and then resolving the unavoidable quickly, Zombie Simpsons creates a problem for Bart and Milhouse out of nothing and then expects the audience to care as they wrap it up with one glacial dead end after another. The Simpsons knew not to pretend that things weren’t going back to normal. Zombie Simpsons doesn’t (or doesn’t care), so they stretch out the worst part and are left with nothing to show for it but nonsense like Milhouse swallowing rocks, Bart falling to pieces overnight and reading a sappy poem Lisa wrote, and Drederick Tatum appearing from nowhere. They said the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet.
Dead Homer Society 
41 responses to “Compare & Contrast: Bart and Milhouse Fall Out”
Bart: That’s even sadder than being friends with Milhouse.
Milhouse: You know something, Bart, I’m getting tired of things like that.
Bart: Tired of what? I dump on you and you take it, that’s how friendship works.
Milhouse: Not anymore. Friendship over.
This is a horrible piece of dialogue. I can count on no hands the number of times, in real life, that I’ve seen someone say “friendship over.” No one actually says something like that, because the situation usually dictates that it’s already implied. It’s like breaking a glass and saying “glass broken.” Well, duh. But since Zombie Simpsons created this out of thin air, they have to actually state what’s going on.
If they somehow made the rag intregal to the b-plot then it would have wrapped everything up nicely. Maybe the rag was Milhouse’s family heirloom and Bart took it to do something juvenile with it? Then Milhouse would have a reason to be cross at Bart. Then Bart tries to recreate the heirloom the best he can (much like when he tried to make amends with Lisa on her birthday) and Milhouse is satisfied that Bart actually cares. Meanwhile the real heirloom isn’t destroyed, but ends up at Moe’s.
Wow, I should be getting paid for this!
Today it would be called a Magic Cue Ball, somehow it would involve 45 seconds of shaking Homer’s Head to abuse him and another minute of groaning, then for some reason Homer gets caught in Slinkey.
Next Week on Zombie Simpsons;
Burns: Hurry up Smithers, you slovenly layabout!
Smithers: Sir, a kind word now and then-
Burns: Silence you slack-jawed gawker!
Smithers: That’s it! Employment terminated!
Then Smithers gets some Hi-larious new job to make fun of whatever industry he gets into. Then in the end. for whatever reason. he ends up back at the Plant with Mr Burns. Credits Roll. Profit!
See, anyone can right this stuff
LOL thanks for making my night :D
The culture at the show has completely changed from the beginning. From listening to the commentaries of the first few seasons it was obvious that the writers had a sort of contempt for the voice actors in that they didnt get a lot of the subtle humor. Now you have Dan Castlenetta himself writing episodes with his wife. It seems it doesn’t matter who writes these things as long as new ones get produced.
You’re way off. This one got written by a fucking rag.
The sense that I get from those commentaries is that the writers were miserable in the early seasons. The stories that they tell from those days all imply that they were tired, overworked, and just generally unhappy. I’m not sure how true it is, but I’ve read that the writing staff under Sam Simon was openly contemptuous of Matt Groening. It’s sad, but I think those conditions may have contributed to the quality of the show–who better to write satire than someone who’s actually pissed-off?
Seriously though, I won’t completely agree with you on this episode. As a b-plot, it didn’t require all that kind of build-up, fight and reconciliation thing. But what I do agree with is the mechanicality with which they produced their b-plot. Sometime when I watch it their characters’ exchange really feels like some satirical role they all prepared for on the big screen, and when it happen, they all know it to be pure play. Which is definitely not the way in the other ep you compare it to because there Bart and Milhouse really seem to lose it at some point, and the acting, if any, is marvelous. And more importantly – you actually believe it.
Anyways, no history trip C&C today? =(
They’re literally farting on the script these days and the words appear every fart that’s made…
Man. Those Zombie Simpsons screencaps always have such an unappealing sterility to them.
Such a world of difference! One seems like it was rendered by a human being with a pen in his hand (which it was), the other looks like it was rendered vector by vector by a Cartoon-o-Tron 9000 machine (which it might as well have been).
(Hmm. Guess the comments form forbids img tags. Here’s what I was referring to.)
What’s even worse is how they animate these days. They even use motion tweens in the fucking intro (look at the part where Maggie is shaking her fist at the One-eyebrowed baby).
The ironic thing is, if “Bart’s Friend Falls In Love” aired today, you would probably try to find some way to criticize it.
it’s almost as if you didn’t read this post or any other post on this blog
I’ve read a ton of this blog. If that episode was announced today, I’d be sure “Dave” would put some poorly-photpshopped blood on the promo image, and then “Sweat Pants Man” would have a conversation about how bad it is.
Instead of moaning about DHS’s rather accurate criticisms of the show, justify how the claptrap that aired on Sunday was any good, at all.
“The ironic thing is, if “Bart’s Friend Falls In Love” aired today, you would probably try to find some way to criticize it.”
The point isn’t that every classic episode is above criticism. The point is that, despite a few flaws here and there, almost every single one of them is really damn good. I can tell just from one piece of dialogue that the episode that aired Sunday night is complete horseshit.
This particular website doesn’t care for Marge Be Not Proud. But you know what? That episode gets more laughs out of a fucking made-up golf game than this show’s gotten in years.
I cannot wait for all of seasons 11-20 to get the entire DHS treatment xD
“The ironic thing is, if “Bart’s Friend Falls In Love” aired today, you would probably try to find some way to criticize it.”
That doesn’t even make any sense. Even in a hypothetical situation, you can’t remove something that’s indelibly a product of its time, ignoring context and causality, and expect it to be exactly the same if it was made two decades later. If “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love” was a 2011 episode rather than a 1992 episode, it wouldn’t have references to Skinner being in Vietnam, it wouldn’t have a “Twin Peaks” castmember as a guest voice, and it probably wouldn’t have a subplot about subliminal self-help audiotapes. It couldn’t have Phil Hartman as Troy McClure, the writing/production crew would be different, there’d be less chance of a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” riff at the beginning (the movie would be 30 years old rather than 10), and the animation would be almost totally different as well. Simply put, it would be a different episode, and almost certainly, an inferior one.
Unless you mean, if the episode was made 20 years ago and aired for the first time today – in which case, I think the folks running this blog would react very favourably towards it.
Oh boy that would be dreadful :/
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Imagine all of Season Three was held back and released as Season Twenty-Four.
Apropos of nothing…I think Milhouse pretty well established himself early in the show as one of the worst friends ever. It’s not just the obvious betrayals like in “Homer Defined” and “Marge Be Not Proud” (seriously, Milhouse, only a total loser actually wants to play a two-man video game by himself), but little things like refusing to spend any time with Bart after he breaks his leg in “Bart of Darkness”. Sure, Bart kind of deserves it all, but…yeah. Milhouse is no fun to be around.
Milhouse was a dick to Bart in “Bart Sells His Soul,” too.
Ah yes that awesome episode xD
The main problem with the subplot was that it was awkwardly forced in. I felt like the writers used it as a way to add a more “human” touch to the episode (considering how the main plot was just a rag narrating with no conflict), but it just didn’t end up working. Nothing flowed as we awkwardly jumped from past to present. I mean, I actually think the subplot had potential, unlike the main plot. Done right, a plot about Milhouse and Bart “switching positions” could be pretty decent. Instead it’s forced in to a small space with no room to grow, and as a result is poorly written and is also unfunny. I can understand the motivation behind it, but it really could have been better written.
“Friendship over.”
Lines like this seem all over the place on Zombie Simpsons, and it pisses me off for reasons I can’t explain. I’m starting to believe that’s it’s some style of speaking that all the writers developed amongst themselves and they’ve become so out of touch that they don’t realize that no one else actually talks like that.
Worst. Climbing. Everest.
Imagine the scene from South Park where the mormon kid said “Friendship over” to Stan instead of “You have a lot of growing up to do, suck my balls” and think about how lame that would have been to end an awesome speech.
One of my favorite moments from South Park.
I’d hate to seen how Zombie Simpsons would even handle that episode.
Oh boy now that would be truly awful :/
To be fair to the writers, its actually pretty understandable that a group that spends long hours together would have a set of favorite in-jokes and references–and I think that is the case with this line. The trick, however, is to place those jokes in the show in such a way that they don’t become distracting.
Remember the scene in ‘Homer Loves Flanders’ where Homer preys a waffle stuck to the ceiling? It was a reference to a piece of candy that was stuck to the ceiling of one of the writer’s rooms. In the context of the show, the joke comes right the fuck out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the plot, but they still managed to make it hilarious (and gave us the word ‘sacrilicious,’ for which I’ll be eternally grateful).
I really suspect that ‘friendship over’–or some variation of that (pizza over, career over, etc.)–is a joke that they like to toss around the writer’s room. When they put it a scene that’s supposed to be kind of dramatic, though, it just sounds odd and unnatural.
At least the waffle joke is humorous in and of itself. From what I remember, they set it up properly, so even if you don’t know where it came from (and you wouldn’t, not until the DVDs came out years later), you could at least still enjoy it. Whether this was meant to be a joke, I have no idea. I think I might be too jaded to properly judge.
ZS can go fuck itself.
A-to-the-MEN bro
Why the hell did they make an episode about Moe’s rag?? It’s so random. It’s as if they just drew out a characters name from one hat, then drew out a random inanimate object from another hat.
Next week it’s..(drawing out random characters name)…Krusty…..and….(drawing out random object)….towel. The story of Krusty’s towel! Or as Bart once called it a big clown hanky.
Why not. It doesn’t make any less sense than Moe’s rag. Moe’s jar of olives would have made more sense actually. Doesn’t Moe have pictures on the wall at Moe’s featuring him and the jar on vacation together?
If they’re going to do a story like this, at least go with an object that is actually integral to the show, like the Simpson family couch. The couch gag is a staple of the Simpsons, so at least doing a story that shows the history of how the Simpsons got that couch would make sense. Maybe they got it at a yard sale and we can see the previous owners and all the couch gags it’s been involved in throughout the years. I doubt it would be funny, but then again nothing ever is on ZS, but at least it wouldn’t seem so friggin random.
I agree with all that or what about how Homer and Marge got their cars? That would involve the family too :P
“Why the hell did they make an episode about Moe’s rag?? It’s so random. It’s as if they just drew out a characters name from one hat, then drew out a random inanimate object from another hat.”
You’re on my wavelength, dude.
“Doesn’t Moe have pictures on the wall at Moe’s featuring him and the jar on vacation together?”
Shit, it’s dangerous to have such a long memory span ZS-wise. I remember Moe’s father was a bartender, now he’s a yeti, but then he, but now he… ARGHHH!
“The couch gag is a staple of the Simpsons”
I thought it got extinct past Season 22?
What was the episode where moe’s father being a bartender called?
Bart: That’s even sadder than being friends with Milhouse.
Unless Bart was trying to insult himself, that doesn’t even make any sense.