Homer becomes annoyed with movie theaters, so Bart teaches him how to download movies illegally. Homer is delighted with his discovery of free movies until he’s caught for piracy.
Lots of guest stars tonight, including Judd Apatow, Leslie Man, Seth Rogan, Will Arnet, and several more. Which I guess is as good of a group as any to use in an episode about a topic that was actually a topic several years back.
Dead Homer Society 
24 responses to “Sunday Preview: Steal This Episode”
I actually might watch because I am interested in how this plays out. ZS often comes off as out of touch (albeit accidentally) with the world today… and this might not be an exception. Say what you will about ZS, but it still pulls in an audience of 12-25s, and the topic of piracy does seem to appeal to them. One false move with this episode, and ZS will cause a good amount of those fans to quit watching.
To rebut your point on this episode being a poochie-esque stab at relevance (and to restate what I said above of audience appeal), this topic is still relevant. It would have been better in 2012 and 2013 with SOPA (amongst other bills) but it’s still relatively relevant. (Hey, they’ve had worse pop culture timing).
I wonder if the no-longer-antiauthoritarian Simpsons will puppet the views of the MPAA and FOX or actually say something original.
It would be a hard sell to the higher-ups at FOX if the script was unambiguously pro-piracy, so it will be interesting to see what the extremely muddled and unclear message will be. I’m not watching it myself, though.
Well, I watched the last few minutes of the episode. I can effectively say that Phil Hartman and Marcia Wallace are spinning in their graves.
The episode seemed to side with the corporations, and went with the typical “Digital Piracy is EVIL” message, sort of. (The end at the theatre seemed to be there just to save face). Also, they got the flag for piracy wrong. That, plus the last five minutes being full of other cliches of ZS, have made me decide that trying to watch the show again this season was a mistake.
Honestly, the Scully years had more chutzpa then this. (It takes a lot of chutzpa to throw Jockey Elves in the middle of a third act.)
That is actually a decent premise…but it will be runied by bad writing.
I haven’t seen the episode but I suppose the obvious “Compare and Contrast” is going to be with “Homer Vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment”. Just from the screenshot above it seems obvious that we have diametrically opposed ideas on how to present modern moral predicaments in each. In “Homer Vs. Lisa etc” stealing cable is a completely trivial and mundane crime which in turn is a consequence free crime. The conflict therefor comes from real places – Bart discovers porn; Lisa, being young, naive and innocent, worries for her soul; Homer’s kleptomania is put in perspective etc. By contrast, it looks like this one has had to resort to typical ZS zaniness. Seriously, The Simpsons managed to get an entire episode out of stolen cable without hardly leaving the Simpsons’ house and yet ZS has to send them to fucking Sweden in an episode about internet piracy? Very relatable.
They aren’t sent to Sweden, they go to the Swedish embassy building for one scene. Also, contrary to the comment above, the episode does not in any way come down on the side of “PIRACY=EVIL.” Those few minutes would have made a lot more sense in context.
Fair enough. Just subjected myself to it there and I think my point still stands. The Simpsons episode was about internal moral dilemmas stemming from the family and their immediate community. ZS convoluted a zany romp which, while not actually going to Sweden as I initially feared, feigned action, suspense and a completely nonsensical courtroom scene in order to say not much at all. So little in fact that they had to have a scene within the credits for Bart and Lisa to explain to people what they failed to put forward in 20 minutes of animated narrative.
As for the stance on piracy, well it was pretty much pro-piracy. But it had absolutely nothing original to say. I seem to remember South Park doing pretty much all the same jokes, like, a decade ago in relation to music piracy. SOUTH PARK DID IT!
Hah! Even without having watched the ep, as soon as I read the synopsis I could swear I thought that there would be Sweden and/or Wikileaks people involved. Not only are their ideas outdated as shit, their whole realization just reeks.
Eesh.
Consulat. Consulats are regional offices which serve the embassy in the capitol.
I just love how Zombie Simpsons makes episodes about topics long after the height of their controversy and/or relevance, or at least long after they started getting popular and then ZS acts like it’s a new thing. What else do you think we’ll get? Personally I’m expecting an episode where Homer (or Marge) gets addicted to an Angry Birds-style smartphone game. Or maybe one where some of the adult characters notice violence in video games and get upset. Apparently the next episode features a woman who is into manga, so maybe that will play out like this as well. Here’s what I’m betting: they’ll treat manga like it’s this thing that’s totally new in the US, and they’ll directly explain things out loud like the viewer is too stupid/ignorant to know what manga is.
I know I watched it but other than the two Nascar cut away gags I do not remember the episode.
South Park did a great piracy episode way back in 2003.
South Park did a helluva better ep about WoW both before and relevantly-speaking. And it even wasn’t about WoW itself rather than RPG addiction in teens. ZS just crammed their characters in a fantasy world and had Bart beaten with its own guts or something. Worst. Shit. Ever.
You possibly might want to copy-edit the proper names in your post.
I wonder how many fellow viewers actually pirated this episode…
Good point! Ironic, if you think about it…
p.s. Stan’s the man!
The Simpsons did an excellent critique of copyright law in “The Day the Violence Died.” Seriously, that episode is brilliant.
I assume this episode sided with the content industry dickheads.
Actually this episode had some relevancy in a couple areas.
-There was a recent news piece in which the host of WatchSimpsonsOnline.com (or whatever it was called) got taken down and fined $10 million. This happened within a few months.
-The theater sequence was more relevant, with some cinemas only showing over-priced 3D or Imax films with no option to watch in in a cheaper flat screening. $72 for a group of 5 is actually not far off the mark.
However, it’s also dated or just plain wrong in several areas
-The whole Swedish consulate bit. Sweden is no longer a true safe haven for piracy (it was). The death metal joke seemed like something left over from a decade ago.
-No downside to downloading illegally. Uploads of theatrical films suck 90% of the time since they are often recorded live through a video cam at a theater. They tend to be modestly inferior experiences at best, at worst they’re just terrible experiences with blurry image quality, poor audio, and often interrupted by whatever is going on in the theater. Being able to pirate a blockbuster with good video quality mere days after it hit theaters is extremely rare, and blown up on a projector it would just look more dreadful. Usually it take several months for something watchable to turn up before it reaches home video.
-99% of the time is is the uploader that gets hit hard by law enforcement rather than the downloader. Occasionally a downloader is convicted to make a token example of, but it is usually the uploader (or site hoster) the receives the C&D letters if not outright arrest.
“They tend to be modestly inferior experiences at best, at worst they’re just terrible experiences with blurry image quality, poor audio, and often interrupted by whatever is going on in the theater.”
Not to mention that I openly laugh at those who actually download these, instead of patiently awaiting the home releases. It’s like fashion: “Fuck 6 months, I want in now!” Fucking babies…
“Occasionally a downloader is convicted to make a token example of”
In the U.S. perhaps, in Canada someone must be either stupid enough to go out and distribute it in the open, or just being caught in the act, which is 1/1 000 000th chance at best.
That was something that bothered about the episode besdies it beng stupid, boring and unfunny… they got perfect quality downloads right after the movie comes out?
Yup. It’s ZS. The conflict is kept to a minimum. They should just give this show a new name… “The Experts!”
I’ve heard that Jerry Seinfeld is pretty good at making bootlegs.
:)
Were the actor names spelled wrong on purpose? *Mann *Rogen *Arnett I feel like I might have missed a joke.