In “The Saga of Carl”, Homer, Moe, Lenny and Carl win the Springfield Lottery. But when Carl takes off to Iceland – his Homeland – with all the winnings, the guys embark on a Nordic adventure to rescue the cash.
In “Dangers on a Train”, looking for a cupcake website, Marge mistakenly ends up an online dating site for married people to arrange affairs. There she encounters Ben, who tries to seduce her based on their mutual love of TV series Upton Rectory, mostly over the phone.
Oooohh! Double Feature!! I can’t recall The Simpsons ever trying to end a season as fast as possible like this before, so that’s new. Also Seth MacFarlane and Lisa Lampanelli are both guests tonight. I wonder if Fox realizes that the people who still enjoy this show are either too young or too out of it to know who Lisa lampanelli is? Not that I care, although now I may spend my time from 8-9 pm tonight listening to her standup instead of watching this 60 minute void.
Dead Homer Society 
32 responses to “Sunday Preview(s): The Saga Of Carl and Dangers On A Train”
…..carl is from iceland?
Apparently.
I just read about this Lampanelli person on Wikipedia… As much as I try to respect the rights of everybody, she is one motherfucking pile of shit and the nastiest individual I ever read about. Ethnic insults for stand-up comedy… Why, I wish I had a gun.
Also, I’m not planning to watch any of this because it’s just plain nonsense. Even if MacFarlane’s in there probably doing another one of his Brian the dog voices (he’s a douchebag too btw, just lesser).
I like Lisa. And people, show some respect for women, if Jay Leno, Johnny Carson,
David Letterman or another male stand up comedian told the same stuff as Lisa, many
people would not be as upset. But hey, don’t take my word for it. And if you don’t like
women in general, or just stand up comedians who are women, then meh. And another
thing, I watch a dozen stand up routines of any comedian before giving them a thumbs
up or down. Also: Tonight’s episode was….. Ok.
I have nothing against women. I have nothing against stand-up comedy. I have nothing against Jay Leno (except yeah, he is a prick sometimes). But what would you expect if a Wikipedia article told you that a certain celebrity is an insult comedienne, and then quote some of her phrases using the word “fuckin’” in public like she would definitely not give a fuck about anyone or anything. Yes, I use it, and here, because I’m not being interviewed in front of a million people by someone famous. That much information gave me a pretty general idea about that woman, which I expressed above, and that’s it. If you want to bash on it then go ahead. But don’t come inventing things that I didn’t say nor mean. Also, I’m glad that you enjoyed the episode, because not everyone enjoys being fucked in the ass by a bunch of crappy writers, and isn’t game enough to simply start a protest and not to watch it on purpose, until it would finally get fucking cancelled.
And just in case you don’t think that I consider every celebrity a douchebag, a motherfucker or a prick, here’s a great name for you to remember: Leonard Nimoy. Very nice guy.
I agree with you, Stan. Mcfarlane is an arrogant, insensitive jerk. And Lampinelli–despite the ultra mean schtick–just plain isn’t funny.
Ok then, were clear on those issues, carry on gentleman….
Fuck Jeff Dunham: His hatred and cultural insensitivity is worse than the Klan, but not as bad as Modern Family or The New Normal. He tries to pass off ancient vaudeville and blackface jokes as modern wit, and he thinks a jalapeno on a stick is an acceptable Mexican character–what is this, the 1920s? Jeff Dunham in 10 words: No peace, love: I come to give you war, plague–
Nobody mentioned Jeff Dunham.
Yep.
I’m pretty sure the Brian voice is his normal voice, so if he’s guest starring it’s probably the one he’d use.
Bingo.
Awful Episode for Awful Show
I’m sorry, but are Sigur Ros really that much of a household name that they deserve to take up half of that poster? For the sake of my sanity, I like to imagine that the only people who still watch the retched excuse for a reconstituted dog shit that is Zombie Simpsons are under 12 years old, and bless em, just don’t know any better. I thought Sigur Ros’ audience was mainly limited to sweater wearing hipster students who felt that indie wasn’t quite dull enough.
Also they’re caricatures look like shit, and as we’ve come to expect, don’t fit in with the show’s aesthetic at all.
( ) is a pretty classic album, imo…
ZS had an episode last season where they used songs by Hot Chip and Animal Collective. They want to be down with the cool kids.
They also had an ep this winter if I remember correctly, where there was a lot of hipster-related manure. The writers don’t understand the grey, they perceive only either white, or black. Hence we have to live with extremes that don’t make any sense.
A lot of Zombie Simpsons episodes seem to be either written by hipsters or for hipsters. Maybe both.
Dude, Sigur Ros is an amazing and innovative band–at least their 2001 self-titled album. And I’m an anti-hipster. I’m just upset they agreed to have anything to do with ZS.
Interesting two episodes, not remotely funny of course but interesting in the context of watching Zombie Simpsons decay. Around Season 9 a major criticism of Homer Simpson was that he had been transformed into “Jerkass Homer”, now we seem to be in the age of “Doormat Homer.” Where Homer Simpson really does nothing wrong beyond being an idiot and the rest of characters are nothing but shit heads to him.
This Icelandic episode takes Homer and Moe so out of character that it destroys any believability you could have. Carl stole $150,000 from them and Lenny and at the end they feel guilty for being rightfully upset at Carl because they could have been better friends? Seriously, this is the same Moe Szyslak who steals Orca Whales and his supposed friend committed a heinous crime but its ok because he was trying to help his family we never heard of. Yeah sure, that makes a lot of sense.
The finale is a rehashing of “Life on the Fast Lane”, this time Marge’s reason to almost commit adultery is completely unreasonable and disgusting since Homer just looks bad because he was working hard restoring a small train as a gift to her. When Homer finds out that Marge could be such a shitty partner (again) he forgives her instantly because hell it’s not like he can find anyone better unless Mindy Simmons returned (please don’t do that Selman and Jean).
I’d like to give them credit for not just using Homer as a continual asshole on the show. But now he’s acting like a stupid version of Ned Flanders in order to keep the Status Quo up. His wife had an emotional affair and he lost $50k, that’s just messed up.
I’m still not watching those, but could you please explain to me how in the name of fuck one can make 40 minutes worth of time with only two things: 1) Carl goes to Iceland and 2) Marge cuckolds Homer. Weren’t there ANY b-plots in them? Wasn’t there the one where Homer and Bart obtain an Itchy&Scratchy mini train?
Actually, compared to last week’s dreadful episode (and last year’s finale), these two were surprisingly watchable. “Dangers on a Train” was certainly easier to swallow than “What an Animated Woman Wants”
Despite the Fox promotion, these are two completely different episodes with pretty much nothing in common. The only possible linking element is that there is some focus on Homer’s drinking buddies, though more on the former.
“The Saga of Carl Carlson” surprisingly has no B-plot outside of the disposable and forgettable first act with the Kung-fu Monsters craze, which is never spoken of again after Homer buys the lottery tickets and brings the A-plot into motion.
“Dangers on a Train” Has an A and B-plot, but they’re surprisingly connected, with Homer planning to surprise Marge by secretly restoring an abandoned department store portable train that they rode on their 1 year anniversary in the B-plot, and Marge in the A-plot somehow accidentally signing up on an adulterous dating site and trying to keep a very nice and compatible (but serious) married Springfieldian at a safe distance while Homer has seemingly forgotten their anniversary and spending all day having fun.
They both certainly have a ZS feel about them (particularly the jokes), but the characters are surprisingly closer classic selves most of the time (Moe isn’t a sad pathetic sack, Homer actually seems to care about his friends and family instead of his usual selfish jerkass self, Lenny and Carl aren’t a seemingly gay couple). The biggest issue I had with is that Barney is never seen or mentioned in the first one despite clearly being one of Homer’s closest drinking buddies (especially over the likes of Moe) and is more of a background character than Lenny, Carl, and Moe in the second one when helping Homer with the train. Lately in ZS, Barney’s been less and less of a friend to Homer compared to being his best friend in the Classic Simpsons
Flanders punched Homer, damaging his eyesight without provocation: Homer was having fun with his parents and laughing with them about how much of a boring, self-righteous asshole Flanders was. Flanders gave Homer the opportunity to punch him in the face, which he deserved for that act and for years of stifling extremism, and Homer refused: In fact, he unselfishly asked Flanders to help Lisa. Yeah, the current writers seem to be compensating for years of Jerkass Homer with Saintly Homer and Jerkass everyone else.
I actually want to thank you for exposeing the whole two plots for me, as this gives me a much better idea of the episodes than just the promo block. But I want to tell you that despite all this, I’m still not planning on watching them. Because despite all the elaboration, the plots still sound too shallow to me. Even to start with the simplest: the call that event “The Carl Saga”, and it’s nothing but a simple episode… What gives? Family Guy, when they had an opportunity to have 2 30 minute slots, did something like Star Wars retelling for example. I mean, even considering that it sucked later on, the promotion was still huge. I didn’t like a bit their remaking of “A New Hope”, and yet I still watched the two other (to the point where they went out of characters and had to cram in Tim the bear or something).
But I should also mention that I didn’t watch What Animated Women Want, and in fact, I don’t think I’ve watched any of their 2013 episodes, besides the one that aired last Sunday. For the last five years I was giving hope to see that maybe the show would still reboot, that maybe they’ll do something with it, y’know, go somewhere. Introduce new characters. Make Bart and Lisa older. Every time they were throwing a fan contest, I thought that maybe it would be for a change. Right now I’m not sure anymore. The hatred for Zombie Simpsons has completely overshadowed my love for the Simpsons, if any remains. In 2008 I still felt obligated to watch the show because I thought those were THE Simpsons, you know. And that was WAY after it started sucking around 2001 for me. But now… I just can’t. It’s just easier for me to boycott it.
For a while I hoped they would make Bart and Lisa older. But then I thought, no, it wouldn’t change anything. Their young ages have never stopped the writers of the show from putting them into situations older kids would be in.
Well, that would be like when a show goes through mid-ratings crisis and they introduce some cliched characters (like Alf the alien and Friends pretty much did), but AT LEAST it would be new! They take cartoons from the 1990s the way they were drawn in the 1990s and add to them a lot of today’s shenanigans so whatever comes out can’t even be called diarrhea.
Dangers on a train? Upton Rectory? Pretty weak puns there, ZS
Already been said, but it needs saying again – how enormous are Sigur Ros on that poster!? Didn’t watch the episode, but they can’t have been THAT major, and while they’re a great band, how many people are really going to be tempted in by a Sigur Ros cameo?! “That’s got Sigur Ros in, I bet that’s going to be funny.”
I know I shouldn’t still be surprised by how obsessed 21st century Simpsons is with celebrity, but that is taking the piss, just a bit. It’s quite a nice design! I like the idea, it’s not a bad poster, but… come on!!
To reiterate some of previously written concerns, I’m definitely not a hipster, since I seem to like most of modern EDM, and some the pop sensations they’re mostly doing the remixes of. But ask me about something outside that field, and the best I would come up with would probably be the Beatles, Elvis, Madonna and Michael Jackson.
That is, I had to fucking idea who Sigur Ros were before yesterday (much like with Lisa Lampinelli), but I’m more than certain were the finale ever set to feature someone like Tiesto, over 95% of the visitors here would be confused with whom those are. And I wouldn’t =)
Stratawhovious?
I haven’t seen this episode, being in the UK, and don’t intend to but I have a couple of queries. From the pre-episode synopsis I thought that there would be something to do with itchy and scratchy land in this, what happened to that? Also, I’ve seen others online refer to the “Carlsons” collectively, when talking about this episode. Did they get that from the show, or just extrapolate it? If it’s the former, it’s a bit of a blooper as Icelanders famously have patronyms, rather than family names.