Almost lost amidst all the hubbub about the 500th episode is the fact that it’s just, you know, an episode. It is likely to be forgettably boring:
The Simpsons sneak into a secret town meeting to which they aren’t invited and discover it’s about whether to ban the family from Springfield. The town decides to evict the family, forcing them to join an off-the-grid community. Homer and Marge try to sneak back into Springfield, but receive hostile treatment from their former friends and neighbors, and begin to appreciate their new, welcoming home.
Sounds like someone dusted off an early version of the movie script and thought, “Instead of Alaska, we’ll send them off the grid. Why not?”.
Dead Homer Society 
67 responses to “Sunday Preview: At Long Last Leave”
“The Simpsons sneak into a secret town meeting to which they aren’t invited and discover it’s about whether to ban the family from Springfield.”
I love how the writers have completely given up on the Simpsons just being an average family. Now the entire town has to have a meeting about them. The beauty of the show was how relatable the family was, but now they’re the most important people in the world. I’m surprised it isn’t Congress that’s having a meeting on kicking the family out of the country.
They’re ALREADY banned in every state aside from Arizona (but it smells funny) and North Dakota.
Even tho they’ve been to said banned states many times over :/
Plus The Simpsons couldn’t possibly be the most hated people in town and it makes Patty and Selma kick Homer out of town billboard a reality even tho it was meant to be their sadistic desire on kicking homer down a few pegs. Also what about Millhouse, Abraham, Marge’s family, etc wouldn’t they be hand-in-hand to prevent this from happening? :S
BTW, they WERE deported back in “Bart Mangled Banner.” They end up in France (I think), and then they emigrate back to America turn of the century style.
By the government and they got arrested for violating the not-patriot act and sent to Alcatraz and they escaped and swam towards San Francisco or Oakland and bumped into a French boat (WOW WTF was that!)
Yeah, I’m not a fan of that episode.
Who is but did you know the beginning (not sure which part of the beginning was used) was written for Season 7.
Yep. Commentaries are magic!
The Season 15 DVD hasn’t been released yet, what episode was the commentary from?
I actually don’t remember which episode it was from, but it was from an early season where an ep’s original set piece was the donkey basketball game. I do know that said DVD in question was released before the episode on question, so I was actually excited that it finally made it into an episode.
Oh okay but it’s a shame it ended up in a ZS episode tho… oh well it ended up somewhere at least.
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I think I mentioned already how the premise sounds more like a series finale. Just end it here while you still can, producers.
Much like Patrick and I mentioned below, moving the town down the road would’ve been a great ending to the series. Springfield is trashed (literally in #200, figuratively in #500), and everyone starts over.
And everything goes back to normal at the end… pfft… and the ending of the 200th episode could have worked as a series finale and it would be more logical if they didn’t move the town.
The writers’ strategy of “Holy crap, people are actually gonna pay attention to this one, we better try for once!” seems to have paid off. Loved this one.
Oddly enough, this is the SECOND Meaningless Milestone episode with Springfield being moved down the road (the first being Trash of The Titans, #200). But I liked how they handled it this time: Homer advertised the Outlands as somewhere you can take drugs and shoot things.
What was written at the end of the episode ?
“Thanks for 500 shows. All we ask is you go out and get some fresh air before logging on the Internet and saying how much this sucked.”
Another failed “attempt” at meta-humour… well at least they know…
This goes all the way back to “worst episode ever” back in season eight. They know. They know.
“Worst Episode Ever” was a Season 12 episode.
You know I was referring to Comic Book Guy saying it in The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show, right?
Okay, then.
Yeah, not to mention that their idea of meta-humour is ripping off Family Guy and South Park ideas that weren’t that original to begin with.
Talk about smug and big-headed. I’m mean, who are they to insult us when they’re the ones nose-diving the series!?
The plot was so doomed from the beginning, that I deliberately refused to watch, but for the sake of curiosity, I will read a summary when one is made, and then I’ll voice my hate.
maybe you guys should write an episode!?
I hate the way…’Cram’ thinks!
Maybe the series should go back to its writing roots from the first 8 seasons. They serious need to start over from scratch to erase these migrains. They should also adapt some of the comic book stories into actual episodes (like Disney did with DuckTales).
I have toyed with the thought of writing an episode (who hasn’t?). However, any hopes or dreams of seeing any success are crushed by the shear amount of red tape you’d have to go through.
Either (1) It’ll get the Roger Myers Jr. treatment, (2) If it ever got as far as production, it would be nearly unrecognizable when it airs, (3) It would be shelved (not unlike Scenario 1), or (4) Zombie Simpsons actually gets cancelled, and it gets shelved (not unlike Scenario 3).
Way ahead of you, but instead of writing an entire episode, just brainstorm some joke ideas that they will be glad to take (and expose them as the jerks they are). Their names will be blackened worldwide! But then again, they may come up with some hoopla and reject all the ideas just because they didn’t think of it. At this point, forget the current series trying to good. Let’s throw in some cynical outrageous immoral plots and turn them against the problematic secondary characters. Here’s some fuel for thought (a.k.a. Season X):
– THOH
Helen Lovejoy resurrects all of the deceased Simpson family members who have died in the series and controls them like cadaver puppets to kill the Simpson family.
Nag Wife Stuck in the Internet: Marge gets trapped in Newgrounds.com. Brief Cameo: Beavis & Butt-head
Bite My Shiny Metal (D’oh): Homer meets Bender and Zoidberg, who fused together and become their own composite Homer.
-After getting completely fed up with Marge’s bossy attitude, Homer, Bart, and Lisa form an alliance and decide walk out on her.
-Homer eggs on Rev. Lovejoy to play him in a poker game. After Lovejoy loses the game and the bet he made to Homer, he has to sell his wife to the circus, and tries to get her back.
-After a massive argument and brawl with Manjula, Apu vows never to return to Springfield, and travels to Sri Lanka. Maggie accidentally crawls into his knapsack and joins him.
-Abe Simpson joins the Foreign Legion
-A mysterious letter brings back many childhood flashbacks for Ms. Hoover, and Lisa tries to figure out what is going on.
-Finally fed up with mother’s irritability, Skinner moves out and has his mother put in the Springfield Retirement Castle.
-After accidentally swallowing Prof. Frink’s intelligence formula, Ralph’s IQ increasingly doubles, up to the point where he grows mad with power and takes over the school.
-Flanders hits his head and thinks he’s Smithers
-After Judge Harm is framed for a crime that she didn’t commit, Lisa agrees to help her clear her name, but only if she agrees to change her ways.
And just wait till you see what I have planned for the one-hour Christmas special with Apu, Manjula, and those crazy octuplets.
well for once it was tolerable…weird ass Julian Assange bit aside
Celebrating 325 episodes of ZS (if Homer’s Enemy is the first episode of ZS).
My vote’s for the principal and the pauper.
The Homer They Fall is the first bad episode IMO, but there are still so many classic episodes after that point. I love Trash of the Titans but can’t recall many great ones after that, so seems like a decent cut-off…
Yeah, Principal and the Pauper is wretched. Not a single laugh to be had (at least the much-maligned-by-this-blog THRILLHO episode had JOKES… “go to hell!”), it’s just worthless in every way an episode can be, and MUCH worse than many ZOMBIE episodes. Though season 9 and even 10 had plenty of great episodes (though I can’t think of a single good season 11 episode, “Worst Episode Ever” and “HOMR” were both good ones from 12, and the pot smoking one in 13 has some laughs. That’s.. about.. it…).
Anyway, episode 500 SUCKED. Big surprise. I thought it was more forgetabble and boring than just about any episode this season.
Anyone catch Family Guy? It was pretty good. It had Gervais on it. He’s EVERYWHERE lately. I reccomend “Talking Funny”, a great hour long HBO thing with him, Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K., and Chris Rock talking about comedy.
Anyone seen any good comedy shows lately? I’ve narrowed down my list of the top 5 best comedies on tv from the past decade.. 1. Curb Your Enthusiasm 2. Mighty Boosh 3. Delocated 4. Louie 5. Arrested Development. Honourable mention: The Wilfred FX remake is surprisingly hilarious and entertaining. As far as all-around best TV shows of the past years… Xavier: Renegade Angel, BReaking Bad, Blaze the Pot Smoking Deer, The Wire, 12 Oz Mouse, Wonder Showzen, Community, Look Around You, and OFF THE AIR.
I really wish there was more good sketchcomedy shows on television. Remember the days of SCTV, HardcoreTV, Mr. Show, The State, season 1 of MadTV, and Kids in the Hall? Remember how GREAT MST3K was? If anyone has any good reccomendations, lemme know.
Try Archer!
I will download it right now, thank you! Some guy at work told me it was horrid but it looks like something I’d love,s o thank you.
Since btjunkie is dead does anyone reccomend any good public trackers? DEMONOID rules but I’d like another one (no piratebay please, the pop ups plus when they try to install shit through java makes my internet want to kill itself).
What? Principal and the Pauper is a rockin’ episode!
I don’t get why everyone hates this episode so much (compare to much worse episodes). It actually gives Skinner a concrete back-story, as opposed to a few vague mentionings of Vietnam. Skinner didn’t have much background or development to begin with other than being a stern principal who lives with ONCE-KIND mother, fought in the Vietnam War, was once a vigilante and a member of the B-Sharps, got fired and befriended Bart for a bit, dated Selma Bouvier, and started dating Edna Krabappel. At least that episode made sense.
Now “That 90’s Show”, that’s an episode we can all loathe and unforgive.
Season 11 had two good episodes in my opinion: “Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner” and “Behinjd the Laughter” (the latter of which should have been the series finale. The other episodes have some of the last truly quotable lines, but they don’t save the truly outlandish premises from that season.
As for this episode, meh. I’ve seen much worse from this season, but nothing interesting happened. The couch gag montage at the beginning was nice, but I could watch the exact same thing on YouTube. The note at the end seemed a bit dickish as well. They might as well have written “Thanks for 500 shows. Now go fuck yourself!”
And on the subject of good sketch shows, Portlandia is really good. Bill Oakley actually serves as a producer which doesn’t surprise me because some parts of it remind me of how The Simpsons would have skewered the hipster subculture if it were more prominent between 1994 and 1997.
Funny you should mention those two episodes. They’re my two favorites of the season. I also seem to like “Beyond Blunderdome” and the episode where Homer grows tomacco, but those are more for nostalgic reasons than quality reasons.
The Sarah Silverman Program is my favorite comedy of that period.
Also a question.. at the end of the episode, it seemed to credit KELSEY GRAMMAR as a guest star. Was I seeing things? Or did he really do a voice on the episode? Because I seem to have missed it.
Sideshow Bob had a line, he said something like: “I believe you know my position” when several characters exclaim they are pleased to banish the simpsons
Oh, thanks. Must have blinked during that part, hah!
A.Bra C.Daver…and everyone else…try the animated MAD. It is on Cartoon Network. I laugh more in one episode of that than I did the ENTIRE last season of The Simpsons…and MAD’s episodes are less than 15 mintues long!
Sweet, thanks. Wasn’t sure about it but I ALWAYS loved mad magazine and mad tv season 1 is a masterpiece.
You know, it’s not realy funny imo but I actually really lke adventure twwwime.
Wait a second….your logo says 300 episodes of ZS……but you say ZS starts at season 12 which would mean 280 episodes instead of 300……which would mean your REAL opinion is that Zombie Simpsons starts at Season TEN, which was PRETTY GOOD! These people are getting more cold by the minute.
No one thinks ZS starts only at Season 12.
By DHS standards, you forgot 1 Season 7 episode, 3 Season 8 episodes, 5 Season 9 episodes, 5 Season 10 episodes and 10 Season 11 episodes. Minus 4 good episodes from Season 12-23 era.
What are the 4 good episodes from 12-23?
Moonshine of the Simpson Mind, for one. But by DHS standards, it actually wasn’t.
Little girl in the big 10, `Scuse me while I miss the sky, Milhouse doesn’t live here anymore, and The wandering Juvie.
Three Season 8 episodes? WHAT? Season 8 was gold!
Yeah, zombie starts at season 13, I always thought. 8-12 is “going down” but it still has funny lines and even good episodes (8/9 in particular are almost all good episodes besides some misses here or there). I think their belief is 13 is when it finally lust all semblane of what made the show good to begin with, opening theme notwithstanding. I’d agree with that since 12 actually has 2 good eps, though I think 13 has … wlllllll
If anyone wants my opinion, besides the fact that I don’t really adhere to the “zombie” cult, the show was watchable by my standards until Season 17-18, therefore I couldn’t state that it was “zombie”, except for the increasing level of suckiness. I remember turning on the tv back in early 2008 for another ep, and then started yawning somewhere in the middle. When it ended, I just thought to myself: “that’s it? that’s how they ended it? wow, what a piece of bull…” That where the remote was thrown away and the big decision was pretty much done. I can’t say I didn’t watch the show after regularly, I did, but I just didn’t care for it anymore.
Btw it was about Ralph Wiggum running for president.
I hope you realize that not everybody who posts on this blog entirely adheres to the DHS philosophy. I, for one, like the “one bad episode” from Season 7 (hence the username), am more defensive of Seasons 12 and 13 than the average Simpsons fan (in that I still think they are mostly bad but have found a few good moments and episodes from them), and I’ve even enjoyed a few episodes from the Zombie era. I actually enjoyed this season’s “The Food Wife” which the blogosphere utterly detested.
The idea behind this blog is that we all generally agree that the show went completely downhill. We don’t have to agree on which episodes or jokes we liked more than others.
I get you, but what I meant is that there is always a moment for every show fan to discard his fandom for a given show and start being its critic instead. That’s when it happened to me. Perhaps for someone else it happened earlier… or later.
…all this spouting from the debate about the number of “zombie” episodes.
I was actually talking to Rib Nut. The way this site is laid out, it can get a little confusing as to who responds to who. My apologies.
But yeah, I was a defender of Zombie Simpsons for a number of years. I think it was somewhere around Season 20 or 21 where I said to myself “You know, I think everybody else is right. The show isn’t very good anymore.”
I completely agree with you (post #51). I generally refuse to use the term “Zombie” when referring to this. A zombie is a reanimated corpse, this is just a show that has yet to die. If you want a TRUE zombie show, that would be Family Guy. Taken off the air, reanimated after a few years, then went massively downhill.
“The idea behind this blog is that we all generally agree that the show went completely downhill. We don’t have to agree on which episodes or jokes we liked more than others.”
Sounds about right. My photoshop skills are limited, but I can turn a 3 into a 5. Didn’t put much more thought than that into it.
Speaking about ‘The Homer They Fall’ I wrote this comment about 3 months ago anyway here’s how it went:
“Remember the episode where Homer becomes a boxer imagine if it was made to be aired in late 2012/early 2013, It would have a ton of bullshit before getting to the point, homer would become a (once again) instant professional, Lusicas Sweet (spelling?) would be called Kon Ding and the episode’s promo pic would be made up of homer, kon ding, dredirick tatem and charlie sheen (guest voice as himself) in a generic colour background featuring an unfunny line from charlie sheen about being off two and a half men and a comment about ashton kutcher and would have a sudden ending which won’t make a whiff of sense but for the writers at least they get to leave early.”
Don’t forget the musical montage showing Homer beating one opponent after the next (humor not required) set to a song tangentially related to boxing.
Oh yes that too :/
“forgettably boring”
Sums up the episode perfectly. It just came and went. There didn’t even seem to be any real conflict given the situation of the episode. I was expecting the family to do something so incredibly bad that it would put the rest of the town over the line, kinda like the beginning of the South Park episode where the boys decide to ignore Cartman because he ate all the skin off of their KFC. But my biggest problem with episode is that it just seemed to resolve out of nowhere.
I’ll give them this much: the “I’m sick of watching fox” was finally a joke they didn’t fuck up by over-explaining it.