Homer offers dating advice to Comic Book Guy when he meets a Japanese manga author who catches his fancy.
Oh CBG, how I miss you, and how I loathe what you have become. From what I’ve read they unfroze Stan Lee to say a few lines, and although that isn’t a new thing for Zombie Simpsons, I think it has at least been a while.
Dead Homer Society 
33 responses to “Sunday Preview: Married To The Blob”
I am sure this episode will be nothing but racist jokes and “jokes” about Caucasian/Asian dating.
Anyone remember the time Stan Lee was supposedly the Hulk?
Oh, gods. This episode is going to suck.
My cash is on the folks at the more forgiving NoHomers to tear apart this episode. Can’t WAIT for the “Behind Us Forever” on this.
Worth noting that the Stan Lee episode in season 13 was, in my opinion, relatively decent. “Looks like you can’t retire by age 12.” “That’s opinion… NOT NEWS!”
Just wondering… 10 minutes in, and it feels like Mike Scully and Al Jean era writers (if not Scully and Jean themselves) combined together to write this episode. Also, I am reminded of so many better episodes… with less exposition and less psuedo post-modernism.
First act is mostly filler, with a lame attempt at a Radioactive Man comic. I think the comic might have worked if it were established as an advertisement rather than legitimate, or the wind and solar guys had not appeared, but it tried to do too much and failed. Long, boring song based on one joke, with a pointless cameo presumably by some celebrity band.
Copying Americatown from the Japan trip, except not nearly as funny, and did they just make a reference to Batmite? A joke about Batman and Robin being gay, because that has not been used by anyone or mocked by Superdickery in the last 80 years.
Are they trying to use Comic Book Guy in the same way as Saddlesore Galactica? This show has really sunk to the bottom. Pointless hallucination with designs copied from Spirited Away and the episode where Lisa hit her head in the graveyard, lame reference to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, another pointless Stan Lee cameo, and the episode ends with nothing to note. Hope the rest of the night will have something memorable.
That… was… mediocre! Not the worst ZS ever sunk, but that’s not saying a whole lot.
I watched this episode, and it’s the first ZS episode I’ve seen in a while. A few people online were INSISTING that the recent episodes have gotten better, and I managed to get my stupid TV to pick up the network for once, so I gave it a shot.
Eh. It’s not as bad as previous ZS episodes. There’s not as much exposition and they weren’t explaining every joke to us. There wasn’t a bunch of stuff happening for no reason, so that’s good. There were more than two funny jokes, so that’s good. But overall, it was still really boring with nothing really noteworthy or memorable. The episode had that annoying, common ZS problem of characters going to Homer for their problems for little to no reason. This episode shows that ZS is still pretty bad at satire, with Lisa outright stating that bit about comic character deaths as a gimmick and the stuff about reboots and the like. Would it kill to have even a LITTLE subtlety? (and “Badgerine”? Come on…) The Miyazaki bit really came off as pandering, but at least it tied in somehow with the rest of the episode, so there’s that.
Assuming that CBG’s marriage is permanent, I’m wondering if it’s a sign that the people working on the show are expecting it to end. The final season of “Futurama” had a few episodes that tied up loose ends, as the people behind it knew it was the last season. It’s harder to say, since CBG isn’t a major character the way Zoidberg is, but still.
Here’s how I judge new/recent seasons of any TV show: if it was for a brand-new TV show, would it last? Would people like it? Would people defend it? As it stands, ZS episodes tend to range from mediocre to outright bad. If ZS was a new TV show, under a different title, with a different art style and the characters having different names, everything else kept the same, I don’t think it would last very long.
“the recent episodes have gotten better”
This blatant lie has been repeated as many times as “that’s a paddlin’” on Youtube. It has never been true, and will never be true.
Older Simpsons would have made CBG fall in love with someone that challenged his misconceptions, at least it would be more interesting than a perfect cookie-cutter asian female. Agnes Skinner was gross, but at least it could have been funny.
After watching the episode, I agree with your sentiment.
While it was FAR from the worst of ZS, and it managed to avoid some of the problems that have really plagued ZS… It still wasn’t good enough to tell me the show is worth watching. I don’t abandon a show immediately after the quality slips, I leave when it’s just not good any more. I continued to watch Buffy even during the weak spots, because even though it wasn’t as good as the previous episodes it was still good. Also agreed on the love interest bit. While it seems they did work to make Kimiko more than a one-note character (whether or not they succeeded is up to you. I think they did better than usual, but it’s not nearly the level that older Simpsons episodes would’ve done) she was still really boring. It’s pretty obvious that she was just made to be a “perfect” love interest to CBG. If they wanted someone for him to marry, that’s fine, but the relationship could’ve used more conflict. As it stands, it was really boring, and we don’t even really get to see them fall in love. Just a short montage set to J-Pop. Hell, we don’t even get much of a reason why Kimiko loves him, other than “he’s snarky”. Lots of guys are snarky and don’t have his glaring flaws, it’s a bit of a stretch.
While it’s an improvement by ZS standards, it’s still really “meh” by the standards I typically judge TV shows. I’m not going to start watching ZS again because it’s “better than it was two years ago”. I’ll start watching it when it gets, you know, good. Not good by ZS standards, good by the standards I judge any other show.
The Simpsons show needs a Roger the alien-like character as replacement for whomever they plan to replace this season (if any). That would do for their awful b-plots where one of the regular characters suddenly plans on doing something crazy.
Also, fuck Comic Book Guy… Seriously, what type of stereotype is he supposed to fill in now? Cynical video game nerds? Hackers with zero to negative real life? Grown-ups stuck in the childhood world? These all are 2000 AD at best. Today someone looking like him can only pass for either one of those customer call center blobs with shitty attitude, or a sleazy photographer-by-day-porn-producer-by-night pedophile wacko with a ponytail. FUCK this character’s out of date!
This one was better than the worst of the season. It gets some residual points for introducing a new character and adding some continuity. Sure she’s probably here to add some diversity in Springfield, but it’s been a damn long time since we’ve had some genuinely new characters in the series that aren’t just one joke walk-ons. My issues with it are:
– Tons of filler. The song, the opening Radioactive Man comic action. and the huge Ghibli fantasy sequence ate up a ton of time leaving this romance completely undercooked.
– The comic “satire” was blunt and pretty old hat. It’s been several years since DC rebooted its comic line and its stone cold by the time the Simpsons got around to lampooning it.
– I found it very hard to care about CBG, a nameless tertiary character who has been one joke for decades, throughout this whole thing. I guess it’s suppose to be a love note to nerds and basement dwelling losers.
– An attractive girl loves CBG (a grotesquely fat middle-aged American) for the shallowest possible reasons. Simpsons, say hello to male fantasy. I guess this is all part of setting up Moe as being the biggest loser in Springfield.
-The concept of having a fresh take on Japanese manga, a rarely lampooned medium on sitcom TV, is utterly wasted. Only a handful of panels and they look like a cross between Hello Kitty and Power Puff Girls. Very weak.
-Homer is the star. Not CBG, not Bart who sees him regularly, but Homer who talked to him a total of three times in the whole series. The whole last half of the episode is Homer hijacking the action to play off a few fat jokes and tired American-oriented Japanese humor.
-Despite the suggestion of lampooning Japanese nerd culture, we just get another round of “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo” of a bunch of stock Japanese jokes and Homer randomly speaking Japanese. Especially weak coming off of South Park’s stab at Sony last year. Feh.
-The Studio Ghibli sequence is incredibly self indulgent. I half expected Miyazaki to show up and say “Hi I’m Hayao Miyazaki. Remember these movies?” Just an excuse to Simpsonize “Spirited Away” and other related characters. That one brief sequence in the Thanksgiving episode of Bob’s Burgers of Bob getting drunk off absinth and imagining a “My Neighbor Totoro” moment involving the turkey was 10x more memorable. Not to mention The Simsons may have very well ripped off that idea from Bob’s Burgers.
Not for nothing, but the earlier seasons were doing a hell of a lot better [I]because[/I] Bart was the main character (with Homer being the second, as the show’s opening order suggests). Once the series slowly started focusing on Homer, it was still decent because it was the 90’s and the Simpsons were still in their own universe. Once the Van Houten divorce lampshading kicked in, along with the new millennium and celebrities of the week (after week after week), the show started going downhill (“Life’s A Glitch Then You Die”, dead Maude, octuplets, Party Posse). Come season 13 and 14, someone SCREWED UP ROYALLY. By season 15, the new crappy status was established as shown in the first page of Simpsons World (the character cast line on two pages). Once The Simpsons went HD, the writers and animators officially stopped giving a crap.
Bart-mania is what made the show edgy and awesome. Bart’s status gave satellite characters a chance to grow. With Home in recent years, Marge became bitchier (as she normally would when Homer is involved), his closest “pals” became more jerkass-apparent, and random filler screen-time for oddity adults (Cletus and his clan, Bumblebee Man, Duffman, Sea Captain, CBG, Sideshow Mel, etc.) turn the series into a pseudo-Muppet Show expy. All they need are even more celebrities in Springfield every week and the pseudo-transformation will be complete (and Family Guy will be #1 by default). Homer’s inflated status also diminished Bart character (to annoying so who craves fatherly attention, but vulnerable against potential girlfriends), shifted Lisa from 8-year old pure-intentioned idealist to jaded/skeptical Soapbox Sadie/liberal with lowered eye lids, and reduced children their age to minor bit-roles/background filler (while the writers can still manage to shoehorn Ralph in the most irrelevant of situations).
The whole idea that the earlier seasons were Bart centric is a fallacy that has been addressed a few times on this blog. Here: “Simpsons History: The Bart Years Never Actually Happened” (http://deadhomersociety.com/2009/06/03/simpsons-history-the-bart-years-never-actually-happened/)
And here: “Rehashing the ‘Bart Show’ Myth” (http://deadhomersociety.com/2010/12/12/rehashing-the-%E2%80%9Cbart-show%E2%80%9D-myth/)
Key point: “Through the first two seasons it’s neck and neck at 12 [episodes focused on] Bart, 11 for Homer and 12 for Both/Neither.”
You’re not a million miles off with your sentiment, I just think it’s a mis-diagnosis. Rather than Homer usurping Bart, Homer transmuted into “Jerkass Homer” and ceased to be a believable father, hence Bart and Lisa ceased to be believable children and Marge ceased to be a believable wife. It’s less that Homer became a black hole sucking all the attention from other characters, but rather that Homer as a cornerstone of the basic premise of an average American family was compromised and hence the whole structure fell down with it.
Correction (Because I can’t find the edit button):
Not for nothing, but the earlier seasons were doing a hell of a lot better [I]because[/I] Bart was the main character (with Homer being the second, as the show’s opening order suggests). Once the series slowly started focusing on Homer, it was still decent because it was the 90′s and the Simpsons were still in their own universe. Once the Van Houten divorce lampshading kicked in, along with the new millennium and celebrities of the week (after week after week), the show started going downhill (“Life’s A Glitch Then You Die”, dead Maude, octuplets, Party Posse). Come season 13 and 14, someone SCREWED UP ROYALLY. By season 15, the new crappy status was established as shown in the first page of Simpsons World (the character cast line on two pages). Once The Simpsons went HD, the writers and animators officially stopped giving a crap.
Bart-mania is what made the show edgy and awesome. Bart’s status gave satellite characters a chance to grow. With Homer as the main character in recent years, Marge became bitchier (as she normally would when Homer is involved), his closest “pals” became more jerkass-apparent, and random filler screen-time for oddity adults (Cletus and his clan, Bumblebee Man, Duffman, Sea Captain, CBG, Sideshow Mel, etc.) turned the series into a pseudo-Muppet Show expy. All they need are even more celebrities in Springfield every week and the pseudo-transformation will be complete (and Family Guy will be #1 by default). Homer’s inflated status also diminished Bart character (to annoying son who craves fatherly attention, but vulnerable against potential girlfriends), shifted Lisa from 8-year old pure-intentioned idealist to jaded/skeptical Soapbox Sadie/liberal with lowered eye lids, and reduced children their age to minor bit-roles/background filler (while the writers can still manage to shoehorn Ralph in the most irrelevant of situations).
Here’s the clip form Bob’s Burgers that is eerily similar to the Simpsons sequence (except at least 2 minutes shorter).
Bob’s plans for a perfect Thanksgiving with his family are hijacked when his family is hired by his wealthy landlord to put up a front for his old flame. Bob ends up getting stuck posing as the landlord’s cook and while he’s cooking the turkey he originally hand-picked for his family (naming it “Kevin”) he passes the time getting drunk on absinth, triggering the fantasy sequence of his family coming back to him and the “My Neighbor Totoro” sequence.
The Bob’s Burgers sequence is brief yet memorable, sporting some great animation to help give it a film-like quality. It also supports the plot by reinforcing Bob’s dream of treasuring a memorable Thanksgiving with his family. The Simpsons sequence (also triggered by getting drunk) involves little more than a parade of Studio Ghibli references for two whole minutes before anything plot relevant happens. And what does happen is literally spelled out to the audience (“The monster is me! Who ‘da thunk it?”).
And really, does Homer and Kumiko’s dad getting drunk and experiencing the exact same hallucination make any sense at all? Not even a snide CBG-like remark of how that’s impossible? Unless they didn’t want to even change the cause of the hallucination after “borrowing” the idea from Bob’s Burgers.
No…that does not any sense…but what do you expect from Zombie Simpsons (or as I like to call them Yellow Family Guy)?
It was just an excuse to waste time and reference Studio Ghibli.
*make any sense.
Married to the Blob,
wasn’t that a title of a Treehouse of Horror segment?
Dear god, they’re stealing from themselves.
Also “Mayored to the Mob.” Their recycling of movie puns is ever-present
This whole episode…. Sigh.
Very weak indeed. And well said people, esp. Joe H.
So Homer is friends with CBG now? I suppose the whole Simpson family has every reason to be at CBG’s wedding. I assume Disco Stu, Krusty, Mr. Burns, and Lenny were also in attendance.
So, uh, since when are Homer and CBG pals again?
If you begin a line with “the only thing that would make this moment more cliched is if…” that does not make doing the cliched act ok. It’s not “meta-humour”; it’s saying that you know your writing is crap but that you are too lazy/untalented/immune to shame to do anything about it.
“We’ll explain.” Not only are they content with spelling out every single thing going on but now it seems they feel the need to point out when they’re doing it. I mean seriously, who the hell was going to be confused that the drunken haze sequence (aside from being a pandering waste of time) was supposed to be a sort of metaphorical awakening for Kumiko’s father? Of course, when it is a dream sequence, people are allowed to just know and spell out, as though quoting some kind of production outline verbatim, how the conflict is to be resolved. In “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer”, the coyote didn’t just tell Homer to be nicer to Marge.
The new character was, as usual, bare. Even Sideshow Bob when tricking Selma into marrying him understood that to be a believable character you have to exhibit a few wrinkles. Yet Kumiko just uncritically loved everything about CBG. Her father was pretty much only her father because they told us as there was absolutely no effort to show us what kind of relationship they had. I presume the idea was to make him a stereotypical overbearing Japanese parent, but the fact that they didn’t develop this at all through his character or Kumiko’s made him seem just like an irrational jerk. The fact that in the second last scene (the one in the Simpsons’ front room for fuck knows why) she doesn’t have a single line, but Lisa does, just sums up how much she was just a prop.
“My hitherto unmentioned chemical engineering degree.” Again, if this were simply a case of poor writing it would be bad, but the fact that they do it with a knowing grin merely shows that these people know full well that what they’re producing is a piece of shit. It shows that these people actually think it’s ok to phone it in. It’s not self-deprecating, it’s not ironic and it’s not “meta”, it’s just brazen contempt for the viewers.
“it’s just brazen contempt for the viewers”
That’s really the core of the whole problem ZS has. There’s other bad comedies on TV. They didn’t come from as prestigious ground as The SImpsons, sure, but still, everyone can see at least a dozen or so really REALLY terrible TV shows out there. Some of them are actually WORSE than ZS. But at least MOST of those shows seem to at least be TRYING to make something they think is funny. 2 Broke Girls is just… awful… but I don’t think it has the same level of CONTEMPT that, as Paddy points out, ZS has. 2BG is trying to be funny. I’m sure the people making it think it’s alright. ZS has pictures of characters from the Simpsons and expects us to laugh at anything they do or say. And screw us if we don’t!
Remember their little plea in the 500th episode to go outside before telling them how much they suck on the internet?
It’s one thing to be a crap show, it’s quite another to be so defensive of it.
Wait, so let me get this straight: the manga artist was visiting “America’s saddest cities” to research her “autobiographical manga” . . . which she has already published, and immediately pulls out of her bag to show CBG?
I haven’t watched a Zombie Simpsons in years, but for some reason I decided to give this episode a chance. Looks like I haven’t been missing anything.
Jack Black didn’t reprise the voice of his character from the previous episode (not going to bother to look up his name.)
In other news: my respect for Jack Black just went up tenfold.
I guess that means the writers intend to use the character (Milo) as a regular character now, something I find quite a waste at this point. Not only did Milo only show up in a single act of his debut episode, his store has never been shown again and his role beyond this episode as CBG’s rival is now near useless.
That’s odd, because that doesn’t change my respect (or lack thereof) for JB one iota. Srsly, when was the last time he was consistently funny &/or cool? Only in cameos like Anchorman, but even that was some time ago.
I wasn’t being completely serious…
Or “srs,” I suppose I should say.
Touché ;)
Check out the movie “Bernie.” Jack Black does a really good job as the title character, and it shows he has more talent and depth as an actor than “Fat guy who yells and acts immature.”