When Flanders’ parents prove to prefer Homer’s company to his, he jealously responds by giving Homer a shiner, and then tries desperately to reconcile with him. Meanwhile, Lisa is at a loss to understand why a new substitute teacher is bullying her for no obvious reason.
I haven’t thought about Flanders’ parents in a long, long time. So that’s a thing I guess. Perhaps these freaky beatniks will get The Simpsons off the train to “Squaresville”. But probably not.
Dead Homer Society 
42 responses to “Sunday Preview: Black Eyed, Please”
Flanders’ parents describe the show pretty well. We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out if ideas.
Having Flanders’ parents on the show doesn’t make any sense. If he himself if 60 years old, then how old are they supposed to be? 90? They must look older than Grampa… yet they don’t.
And I don’t even include the fact that the show itself ran for so old as to have Flanders himself dead already.
This episode was absolute GARBAGE. One of the worst ever.
What else is new?
I was disappointed not to see Flanders punched in the face: He is a great character, but I hate religious fanatics. Tim the Bear regularly gets injured in The Cleveland Show, and in the last episode, one toddler died and the other exploded, so why does the Simpsons have to be so stuck up about this?
Comparing Simpsons to CS… Tsk tsk tsk has it really hit the new low.
So “The Cleveland Show” is now better than “Zombie Simpsons”. Could there be any
greater put-down for ZS, except to say that” “Brickleberry” is now better than ZS”?
IMO not yet, but… it’s coming.
My review:
1) Chalkboard becoming markerboard = good idea, except the message itself is lame.
2) Whoops, looks like Bill Plympton (yaay I looked him up!) bought the couch gag slot… Mkay, moving on.
3) “Christ is watching”. Familyguyish.
4) At least they’ve remembered that Flanders is left-handed.
5) Wait… Edna back with Ned? Didn’t they break up about a year ago? Oh yeah, here comes the totally ambiguous “cock” joke. Then follows the dream sequence full of second hand jokes stolen from Family Guy. And for the sake of non-relation between all this, I must love lamp.
6) After reading all those lines from the Bible, I thought he’d fuck Edna or something. How can there even be a different resolution?
7) No Abe, this isn’t Sweden. In Sweden they don’t write such crappy jokes.
8) “You went and hired a law firm, eh?” First real laugh. 13:42 minutes in.
9) Also, I’m sure in Sweden the story follows, so a location is there for something, not just to see gay Smithers say gay stuff. And also, second time pt.4)’s not that funny.
10) Wikipedia does not define “tarp” likewise. If you got me pausing your show to check on refs every 10-20 secs, then at least do something funny by copying a definition verbatim for example.
11) This shall go into my “ends with Castellaneta making funny sounds” collection.
12) Bergstrum and Glasscock (instead of Testicles) were definitely better btw. And also, to elaborate on the subject, a teacher hating a student is one thing, but turning that into bullying and everyday harassment in general is nigh feasible to go unpunished, even for a substitute. Making a joke on this is probably on the same level as those shows who mock age difference in couples or something. I mean, this is definitely not how it should’ve went. To be p.o. with a student who makes the teacher look like an unprofessional dimwit could’ve been a much better idea here, clearly (plus Lisa is much more fit for the role of a bookworm contradicting information given by a fresh graduate substitute, hence the hatred). But… pretty? Lisa? That’s weird cause I always thought Lisa didn’t have hair, just an extension of her yellow skin on spiked skull, for some reason. Oh, it must be because she wears pearls. Yes, that’s it. Pearls.
I’m a go wait for Bart to publish this voyeur video on Dailymotion now.
I highly reccomend everything Bill Pympton has ever done. He is up there with Yoji Kuri and Don Hertzfeldt as being in a league of his own animation-wise. Total genius.
Yeah, but it doesn’t mean that I should bump into his art were I to watch a Sunday night show. If I’d have wanted to find out who Plympton was I’d have appreciated an ad on Facebook, a share or an e-mail from a friend. A couch gag is a fucking couch gag and is intended to be funny in its prime, not a promotional device for people who can very well promote themselves.
I doubt Plympton was using a couch gag as self promotion. I think the elaborate couch gags are one of the only decent addition Zombie Simpsons has added. I wish The Simpsons would get more animators to do couch gags. I loved the John K (of Ren and Stimpy fame) and Banksy (I know he is not an animator) were great.
I’m thinking of renaming myself “Grumpy Cat Owner” because seriously, it seems that I am the only one bitching about those things. Yet I am willing to keep on, because I truly believe that people who take it light are the cancer killing the show. Not that it’s not right, I mean photography was once the cancer which killed realist paintings, just to give an example.
But really, I tried to think back to maybe 2000-2001… How many couch gags were featured back in the days that involved different artists (or other personalities). The only good one that I remember was Matt Groening coming on screen to put his signature in the bottom right corner, with Marge then erasing it. And yes it was funny. You didn’t need to copy a style, to have someone kinda sign the gag (even the word “gag” loses its meaning with these… insertions), or whatever. And I stay by it.
I think it’s good to shake the show up a bit. If they plan on keeping the show on, they need to realize the classic years are long over, so why not experiment with the format and the animation style? The TREEHOUSE OF HORROR comic by the Kramers Ergot gang from a few years back is a classic because of this, with Ben Jones of Paper Rad doing a story.. Jeffrey Brown doing a story.. etc… all of them reiminaging the Simpsons in their own way, with different styles… also see the great youtube.com Hommer Simpson series… I am not saying the show should just turn into acid-fucked brainmelt insanity or whatever, but shaking things up a bit wouldn’t hurt. Still, they haven’t changed for this long, they probably never will.
I would love to see a Simpsons episode that was just different animation styles. Think 32 Short Films About Springfield meets MTV’s Liquid Television. We have to face the fact that The Simpsons are never going to return to the golden days.
I would appreciate Zombie Simpsons more if rather then recycling plots and trying to be topical they just went crazy. They have the TV equivalent of tenure so why not switch things up?
Even this wouldn’t be innovative, seeing as Family Guy team is already a couple years ahead.
Besides it’s not like I give a fuck about what the majority thinks anyway… That same “majority” turned Western society into a turd. So no, in a kinda way, I’m not with whatever’s “in” today, and as a young adult in his early 20ies, I’d rather prefer for the show to turn back to its origins (but NOT the way they do it now).
Good luck with that
They made Richard Dawkins turn out to be satan… I’m not sure what’s the joke was ment to be… Everything appears to be in order…
The ‘joke’ behind this was that most people considered Dawkins to be close to god or something. With ZS writing, you have to make sure that the joke was well-discussed on Twitter about a year before they set it up, along with an obvious explanation for those who somehow still didn’t get it.
I was ironic ;) I’m with Ned On this one. Dawkins = Satan… (and I have nothing agianst atheists, I just hate this guy in general ) Still I think it was cool that he lend his own voice…
Based on what guess stars have to say today (and take that along with DeVito’s recent line as Herb Powell that alone brought more attention than the whole episode idea), I wouldn’t be so proud of my line would I be him. And it’s one thing to have people like Bieber voice themselves in a storyline which involves publicity stunt level self-promotion, and another to have people like Bieber be beaten to k.o. without even Bieber himself voicing the part (which is both funny and non-conflictual toward the guest star himself).
It’s only fair that since they bring up real “celebrities” to voice themselves, they have to treat them like respected personas on the show.
I think the joke was that Dawkins doesn’t believe in God or the Devil, so it’s the simpsons attempting to be ironic by making him the devil … he doesn’t believe in himself, I guess. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was …” well you know.
It was more like “religious people see Dawkins as evil…” I think the joke was netural (clever in that way) since if they would have Dawkins appear as his regular self it would be hard not to take a side and either present him as glamuros atheist hero or as a total whinny jerk. This way both religious and atheist people can find it amusing in their own way…
The joke sucked because it required either self-explanation or further knowledge. Maybe it’s fun to have a joke explained once in a while (like the one with corn nibblets), but to take a guy and to stick a public impression on him and then to let it all loose like this is simply madness.
Please Mr. Mad Jon! Make a post about how coll the hell sequence was or commpare it to the one from “Bart gets hit by a car” or something… ;)
The teacher didn’t like Lisa…because she was jealous of her looks. WTF?!
Stan, Ned and Edna never broke up. They actually married last season.
Yeah, I probably wasn’t on pot when I watched it, therefore my subconscious couldn’t give enough shit to remember it.
It is normal to want to buy a rifle and go kill the writers?
It’s not normal to buy a rifle period.
cluck-chin-ching.
“There’s Al Jean, there’s Al Jean, there’s Al Jean, there’s Al Jean, there’s Al Jean!” “Marge, I think I hate Mike Scully! Wait, no, I find Sherri Bobbins, Scorpio, Frank Grimes and L.T. Smash witty and informative.
“HEY GUYS FLANDERS PUNCHES HOMER EPISODE OVER GOOD NIGHT”
I haven’t laughed at an episode of zombie Simpsons in about 10 years, but last night they actually made me laugh. It was when Homer was watching baseball and there was a rain delay. I love Harry Shearer doing the voice of the play by play guy. “And here comes the tarp.”
It made me laugh. First time in 10 years. Like the Generals, they were due.
Where’s the joke in that?
I guess you dont remember when they pelted Whitey Ford with pretzels back in the good old days. “And here come the pretzels”
Its all in the delivery of the line. Shearer does a great baseball color man impression. He perfectly captures the folksy, tediously slow commentary of your typical ball park announcer guy. It’s kind of a long running gag.
You know, we dont always have to be negative just because its the internet. Even though the episode was utterly forgettable, that doesnt mean we have to find fault with everything. I’ve always liked Harry Shearer’s ballpark guy, Don’t worry, i’m not saying it was a good episode. But Harry Shearer is still capable of making me laugh.
I see what you mean, but I guess I never found these funny in the first place. It’s one thing to have the announcer guy say something funny about someone being booed at the arena (although personally I’ve always been a sucker for slapstick comedy, like Homer shouting out loud that he’s invincible at the crowd, only to receive a toilet bowl out of nowhere on his bald head).
And yeah, I also guess that I went too much internet meme on the last ep. But I swear it wasn’t the intent, I just had the will and an opportunity to pause so that I would find more Harlem Shake-like ripoffs or something. It just so damn frustrates me when they do it from time to time!
Damn, that episode was so boring
I just noticed that this episode had a build-up of bonding between Homer and Flanders’ parents, especially when Homer says that he has great time spending with them, only to have them cut completely at the end of the first act, and never return. I mean are we even beyond those times when they would at least make a side character return as a cameo at the end, so that it all wraps up? The a-plot seems to stumble on a-plot at the end in an effort to make sense… really, how can one possibly go any lower in scriptwriting?
Did you forget to watch the ending, Stan? They have 4 acts now, you know. Or maybe you were just too baffled by the fact that Lisa has hair or too angry they didn’t literally copy a wikipedia article.
I didn’t but I guess I did. It’s hard to ask of a man to sit through whole things already.
As for the other sentence – you try to keep it up, then we’ll talk.
This show is always interesting.
Yeah, it’s always interesting to find out what garbage will they bring into their next episode, provided the Season 24 best is now like Season 19 worst.
Based on this review (and others summaries alike, and because I recently quit the rest of the series), Ms. Cantwell’s behavior towards Lisa is completely atrocious and unprofessional. In no way should a teacher (not even a substitute teacher) should be allowed to treat a student that way and still keep her job, especially over such a petty and bias generalization. A sole purpose of an educator is to help nurture the growth of a student and their academic needs. Well this is just another fine example of how f**ked the Board of Ed is in Springfield, along with the usual criminally-mismanaged conditions of the school itself, while Chalmers could careless, and Skinner’s usual line of defense is his experience in Vietnam.
Oh, and I don’t care for the fact that Ned punched Homer not once but twice, without receiving a single shred of comeuppance.
BTW, I meant what I said when I said that I was watching the episodes anymore. Of course, its harder nowadays to find episode summaries and framegrab galleries just so I can tell what goes on in an episode and why/how badly they suck so hard. But as long as I have the knowledge of the events in my head, I will continue posting, but only when its true necessary. The upside though is that my comments won’t be so heated anymore as they were before.
But as for my Marge issue, “Love is a Many-Splintered Thing” took the cake (for those of you who bothered to watch it or read about, you know what I mean). She literally has 0% credibility at this point. So…..at this point, she’s crazy enough to ruin any episode plot, since she forces herself into an episode role, as a threat to the rest of the able-bodied Simpson three (a.k.a. The “Do-ers”). So it’s most likely that she will have a main role in central episode plots again, making it hard not to bash her (even when reading summaries). But at least I won’t be writing while viewing/piping pissed anymore.
To be quite honest, I have no idea how much worse the future episodes can get at this point, so I’m not sure how well I can handle my commenting. No hard feelings, since we all hate the same thing (some of us more apathetic than others).