“Gotcha! It’s April Fool’s for two more minutes.” – Homer Simpson
“Dad, it’s May 16th.” – Bart Simpson
“You were in that coma for seven weeks.” – Lisa Simpson
This week’s pile of horseshit starts with Bart’s chalkboard saying “You Can’t Play April Fool’s Jokes on April 27th”, which is their way of telling the audience that even they recognized this one as a wretched and unwatchable entry. Homer and Bart serenade a horse in a cheap, wannabe Les Miserables parody, but that’s after Bart gets a bunch of people pregnant with voodoo, which was itself after they fell back on referencing as many comic geek franchises as they could (again). The thing was such a mess that they had to tack on a fake beer commercial sketch at the end that had nothing to do with the rest of the episode. Also, in this April Fool’s reality, horses can operate stereos. Comedy genius, that.
– Great couch gag, and not only because it was a full minute long, shaving many precious seconds of stupidity off the rest of the episode. Can they farm these out every week? It’s really the only good part of the show.
– At least the bartender meeting didn’t take long. We had to get right to the naked begging for geek approval of putting the characters in superhero costumes.
– Funding from Canal+ was a nice quick sign gag.
– Kirk getting sucked into a vacuum hose was pretty pointless.
– So, Willy’s naked in front of ten-year-olds? They are asking us to just roll with a lot of shit this week.
– Oh, look, one of Bart’s many ex-girlfriends, and who is also apparently Chamlers’ daughter.
– And more creepy kissing. I was really hoping that was behind us.
– So, are we gonna come back to the missing ingredient in the voodoo curse? I have doubts.
– “So, your boy’s got magic knock-up powers, huh?” – Glad we cleared that up.
– Nice of Lenny to explain the joke before he complimented Homer on his virility. Jokes that need to be explained first to work always land.
– You can tell how slapdash these stories are from the little things: That couple driving onto a baseball diamond for no reason, Homer just happening to walk past Bart’s voodoo show, Homer choking Bart in front of a two strangers who just sit there, the complete absence of Lisa, etcetera.
– Bart is now sitting at Moe’s with Homer.
– Homer’s lack of wallet thing was pure filler.
– Remember when Fat Tony had good lines instead of crap like “How would you like a cast over your face?”.
– “How is this my fault?” “I wouldn’t be here if you were more of a role model.” – Aww, they’re trying to make this about Homer and Bart’s relationship. It’s like George Meyer left “how to write Simpsons episodes” instructions before he gave up on them and subpoint 2-3.b is “have an emotional connection between family members”.
– A horse just turned on a boombox to play “It’s Raining Men” so it could dance around for ten seconds. I’d say the show has reached a new low, but we all know that isn’t true.
– And, after following a horse that casually walked out of its stall, we’re in a flashback montage.
– Homer is singing to horses to get them to fuck. This is really bad, even by their standards.
– And then Homer gets kicked by a horse at the end. How else could you wrap up that masterpiece?
– Hey, look, they’re aping the opening of Modern Family, a show that’s much better than this one.
– And we’re ending with a horse testifying at a trial in a random, SNL-at-its-worst comedy sketch. Seems appropriate.
Woof, what a mess of an episode (and yet another total waste of Fat Tony). That song was just brutal, and what the hell did any of that have to do with Les Miserables? They long ago lost the ability to tell a story, but when they don’t have a b-plot and everything has to ride on one story it’s usually a bigger trainwreck, and this week was no exception. I knew we were in trouble when Fat Tony kidnapped them with 8 minutes to go, but I didn’t expect things to get that desperate. Yeesh.
Anyway, the ratings are in and they are worthy of that hacktacular crapterpiece. Last night just 3.38 million people wondered whether or not that really was an ill timed April Fool’s joke. That’s good for second place on the all time least watched list, replacing “Days of Future Future” which held the spot for only two weeks (and no other new episodes). Eight of the ten least watched episodes of all time, including spots 1-7, are from Season 25. Presumably the Lego episode next week won’t bomb quite this bad, but Season 25 is already locked into being the least watched season ever.
Dead Homer Society 
40 responses to “Behind Us Forever: What to Expect When Bart’s Expecting”
I hate to break it to you, but the chalkboard gag likely wasn’t meant the way you interpreted it.
they should make an entire episode that’s just a couch gag
Conceptually, that’s a pretty amusing idea, but I don’t know whether the current staff is capable of pulling it off.
That’s why it’s a good idea: outsource it to people who know what they’re doing.
To my knowledge, they did that couple of weeks back. “Hey folks, why don’t YOU write us a cough gag”, I mean. That’s why they probably got better.
Still, no couch gag should take over 1 minute, unless it’s a completely random cancan entry with biking bears and juggling elephants and dancing chicks and whooshing flames, and ends with a clown honk.
Voodoo powers and singing a song to try and get horses to have sex? Are the writers idioits or on drugs? Or both?
I just got done watching the last episodes of Liberty’s Kids. I got the whole series on DVD last week really cheap. Now THAT is a good animated show! The Simpsons USED to be one!
Well said FF.
“Oh, look, one of Bart’s many ex-girlfriends…” In the same episode Bart claims he doesn’t like girls. D’oh!
Damn not even Family guy falls THAT low!
That’s because they probably forgot to tell a penis joke.
Out of curiosity, what’s the least-watched?
The AV Club is reporting this as the least-watched of all time, but I’m gonna assume you guys would have more of an interest in watching the ratings closely.
And when the heck is Bob’s Burgers finally gonna overtake the Simpsons?
Also: as disappointing as it is to hear this show continues to exist, I have to admit that I’m happy when it’s on the air, because of the Dead Homer Society posts. Your compare/contrasts in particular are just really entertaining reading. They come off as a genuinely educational Goofus/Gallant thing.
The day the Simpsons get off the fucking air… will be the day I will forget Sunday evening cartoons exist. And this will be good, because I’m sick of all yous peoples being constantly sick of me.
“Diggs”, thanks to a 7:30 Slot the week it aired, is currently the king of ratings futility, clocking in about 2.65 Million Viewers.
What to expect from Radcliffe who now speaks with fluent Yankee accent (and has grown horns for some reason).
The least watched episode ever is Diggs. It got less than 3 million!
I predict that even the Lego epiosde get bad ratings.
They changed the programming, and nobody cares. Lego was supposed to air this week. It just goes to show you nobody cares what they’re watching. It’s a good thing DHS exists because these mindless zombies out there just annoy the shit out of me with their attitude towards the show. And what was the deal with April Fools’ Day at the end of April? What the fuckey? Are they trying to start some kind of internet meme with it, sitting there in front of CIA’s Twitter monitoring services and swallowing their saliva to find out how many idiots would tweet it? See, this is exactly what the internet has brought upon us all, what was meant to be a possibility to express opinions has gradually become some waste dump where people post senseless sentences about nothing. Disgusting… Ray Bradbury would turn in his grave.
Prediction: This Simpsons episode will be added someday to Wiki’s Nightmare Fuel page, and also this episode marks the eventual downfall and final cancellation of the Series between Seasons 26-32.
The final episode btw will be mostly montages of 50% Classic Simpsons and 50% ZS.
They should end it with the family teleporting back into “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” and Homer telling his other self that they must kill them in order to prevent “some grave cataclysm”. And both Groenings should guest star: himself from 1989 and his future self, whereas one tells another what will happen. And then the Zombie Simpsons would go back in time, only to find out that all of the Springfield was replaced by Bob’s Burgers universe. And so they fade out of existence.
And the credits would show Homer in heaven, trying to tell God what the meaning of life is, with God not listening.
That’s gold, also lol
Btw, here’s a picture I found which I particularly enjoy: http://s22.postimg.org/thhr8x8qp/Simpsons_evolution_new.png
This episode was not as bad as most I’ve seen this season but then again I’ve only seen about four.
Yeah okay, I am not sure anymore.
Am I the only one who noticed the huge window RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE COUCH that seemed to exist solely for Homer to have a conversation with Flanders while sitting down. Could have shed several layers of stupidity by just having Homer call him on the phone.
Yeah, this one was bad. A fantastically stupid plot with some Bart vs Homer drama that comes literally out of nowhere. Horseshit is a very apt description here.
I was reading your comment here Stan and a Simpsons version of the movie Eraserhead (from David Lynch, from the 70’s) just flashed into my mind.
Also: Don’t forget pigshit as well, lol.
Jk.
Was that comment addressed to me?
Not the 2nd paragraph (that was regarding your horse**** comment regarding The Simpsons)
But the Eraserhead one was directed at you, Stan. The comment of yours brought back memories
of David Lynch’s movie from the 70’s.
Their most recent plots are worse than coma sequences from The Clockwork Orange imo.
Eh, sorry, trying to be funny, only works for comedians and people like you. Me? I’m of German and Irish descent, does not work out so well…. Sigh.
Yeah, probably like Baruch O’Bama.
actually, i didn’t watch this episode, so I don’t know the exact placement of the couch, but there was also a window in front of the couch in the episode where Homer gains weight to 300+ pounds, where all the kids are staring at him, and he uses his cane to whack at the window to scare them away.
Kinda off topic but I want to know if this is real or a dream I had. Was there an episode of ZS where Nelson and Lisa portrayed Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen where their heroin addiction was replaced with candy? I assume Bart and other random kids portrayed the rest of the Sex Pistols. It really seems to fucked up to be true hence why I am not sure if it really happened or not.
Education’s bollex, bollex!
America is bollex, bollex!
er, I mean, ’twas a dream, bartcrowe. Go to sleep.
Yep, it happened. It was the same episode that had Goofy euthanized at a dog pound for no reason. It was also their last attempt at doing anthology type episodes which were essentially the equivalent of THOH episodes except rarely as good.
That was real, bartcrowe. It was a segement in an anthology episode about love.
Here’s another sign the show might be on its last legs–How many episodes this season ran short of its runtime, resorting to some sort of short and resorted to unrelated filler sequences at the end of the episode, like this Duffman commercial? I swear it has to be at least half of the episodes this season, more if including couch gags that take a minute or longer to get through.
This one had it all, overlong (albeit good) couch gag, a stupid tacked on commercial at the end, a parody non-ending….I’m sure they only put that song sequence in there to pad out the episode after randomly finding one that had the length they were looking for.
And about the non-ending, does the episode at least try to resolve whether Bart is actually making people pregnant through Voodoo? Wouldn’t the successful pregnancy of Fat Tony’s horses only encourage others to seek out Bart for his Voodoo magic willing to pay thousands of dollars for a successful pregnancy? Even though it’s early ZS, the episode with Bart as a faith healer actually made more sense than this–the song sequence was more appropriate and we actually got a resolution to the plot in which Bart was shown to be a fraud and actually couldn’t faith heal. It’s not like they couldn’t fill out the episode through the plot alone, it’s just complete laziness that constantly has some of these writers fall short
What’s the take-away at the end of this episode: Bart can use Voodo, Voodoo can cause pregnancy, and there is no negative side-effect of using Voodoo to impregnate women. If I were being impregnated using Voodoo, I think I’d be at least a little concerned just what kind of baby I’d be giving birth to, or if the baby was cursed in some way. So yeah, we get an episode in which Voodoo is real, yet they go about it in the most inane way possible–why not have Bart experiment with other hexes on people and really get serious about Voodoo folklore? Nah, too much creativity and effort involved
Lastly, what about the “tears of a chum”? It was necessary to get Milhouse’s tear to get the magic to work the first time, but his tears are never used again. Does that mean Bart really is a fraud? Nah, I’m sure it’s because the writer just didn’t give a shit about the plot making sense.
There was literally one line in this that made me laugh (or at least breathe air through my nose a little harder) and it was ‘I’ve never seen Johnny Tight Lips this happy’. And even then it was a pretty cheap joke.
Wait, was the chalkboard gag really “You Can’t Play April Fool’s Jokes on April 27th” word-for-word? Because if so, they really aren’t trying very hard. It should be written as “I Will Not Play April Fool’s Jokes on April 27th” – you know, because the idea is that Bart is being made to write lines as a punishment?
I get that phrasing it as “People in general shouldn’t play April Fool’s jokes on April 27th” still makes sense, but there’s no reason to say it this way. I mean, it’s not like playing April Fool’s jokes after the 1st is physically impossible, right?
Maybe I just want to discuss the chalkboard gag because any part of a Simpsons episode where the theme tune isn’t playing is pure misery nowadays.
I thought the chalkboard gag was, ‘April Showers Do Not Bring Matt Lauers’.
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