“I’m glad I’m not crying, because I would hate for you think that what I’m about to say is based on emotion. But you, sir, are a baboon!” – Lisa Simpson
“Me?” – Homer Simpson
“Yes, you! Baboon! Baboon! Baboon! Baboon!” – Lisa Simpson
“I don’t think you realize what you’re saying.” – Homer Simpson
“Baboon!” – Lisa Simpson
First off, sorry for the lack of Compare & Contrast this week. I’m still in the thick of it at work and didn’t have time. (Things will – he typed hopefully – ease off starting next week.) In regular news, we’ve got some great links this week, including outstanding fan art (there’s a whole exhibition of the stuff!), a brand new Simpsons blog, some excellent usage, and an on-point article about one of those perfect little subtleties in “Lisa’s Substitute” (which, coincidentally enough, aired for the first time twenty four years ago tomorrow).
Enjoy.
The Timing of a Door Slam on The Simpsons – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this fantastic observation about the end of “Lisa’s Substitute”. It’s one of those things you don’t notice because it’s so flawlessly done. Well worth a click.
Simpsons-inspired art exhibition opens in Liverpool – With lots and lots of pics! The Marge mirror and the Thrillhouse thing are outstanding.
The Simpsons’ top 30 movie references – Great list (although it bafflingly leaves out The Shining) at Den of Geek. Two unsurprising things deserve note: 1) none of the entries are from Zombie Simpsons and 2) they don’t mention that at all because nobody wants the hassle.
Ted Cruz loves ‘The Simpsons,’ but he botched his favorite quote – He was close enough for moderate usage.
A Trap Music-Style Remix of Homer Simpson’s ‘Treehouse of Horror’ Meltdown – Pretty good.
10 Simpsons Characters As Real Humans – A decent collection of comparisons that have mostly been done before.
Cocktail Recipe: The Marge Simpson – I’d probably go with gin over vodka, but that’s just me.
MR. BURNS: A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY to Run 5/13-6/7 at Portland Playhouse – And the play goes to Portland.
The Character Files: Rafael – He’ll always be the Sarcastic Guy to me.
The Character Files: Very Tall Man – I do find him comic while driving his automobile, but I probably wouldn’t say that to his face.
Catch-23 No. 27 ‘Big Other’ Part 8 – Heh.
Instagram Crush: @madnails – Great set of Simpsons nail art.
5 ‘Simpsons’ Characters You Didn’t Know Were Voiced By Hank Azaria – Uproxx must do good pageviews on their endless array of Simpsons posts. I’m certainly in favor of them keeping it up.
‘Simpsons’ Photos To Describe Losing Your Virginity – What about that Stock Footage Festival the kids went to?
Moving Away from Evergreen Terrace – For anyone wondering why the DVDs got canned, this, from a longtime fan, should explain things:
When the season 17 set was released last December, I held off on buying it because it didn’t feel worth the week-of-release sale price. We have to have it someday because Sideshow Bob is on the cover, but perhaps we can wait for Black Friday pricing. No hurry. We haven’t even cracked open the season 16 set.
Habit buying ain’t gonna pay the freight.
Top 5: Television Cartoon Dogs – Santa’s Little Helper comes in at #3, though I can’t really argue with Scooby at #1.
The Classic Simpsons Battle Royale! – Another site is going through the episodes, tournament style.
Round 1, Battle 1 – Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy VS I Married Marge – That’s a tough one.
Round 1 Battle 2 – Old Money vs Like Father Like Clown – Also a tough one.
Round 1 Battle 3 – (S. 12, Ep.6) The Computer Wore Menace Shoes vs (S. 10, Ep. 23) Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo – Whereas here I can just go with Season 10.
Crack open a virtual Duff with Homer Simpson on his legendary couch – Someone created a virtual Simpson home you can wander about if you happen to be wearing one of those VR headsets.
This episode of Mad Men felt like a spinoff – Excellent reference:
Todd VanDerWerff: Do you guys remember that one episode of The Simpsons “The Simpsons Spin-off Showcase”? Airing in season eight, it purported to show three separate proposed spinoffs from the series, including a cop show, a stupid gimmick sitcom, and a variety show. The terribleness of the ideas was the point — this is what television networks do when left to their own devices, the episode seemed to snark.
Well, I feel roughly similarly about “New Business,” which feels for much of its running time like “The Mad Men Spinoff Showcase.”
All shows must die — even Game of Thrones – Excellent usage:
In The Simpsons episode “Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie” — which, by virtue of being a Simpsons episode about the internal machinations of television, makes it one of our best excoriations about how stupid the internal machinations of television are — Homer is drafted to provide the voice of Poochie, a hip dog brought in to revitalize the flagging cat-and-mouse cartoon show. For his first voice session, he’s understandably nervous: “Is this episode going on the air live?” he asks. “Very few cartoons are broadcast live,” an old hand reassures him. “It’s a terrible strain on the animators’ wrists.”
New trending GIF tagged the simpsons homer simpson… – a deer, a female deer!
New trending GIF tagged simpsons weed homer simpson… – Homer disappearing into marijuana instead of a hedge.
CMW 2015 Preview: First You Get The Sugar – “Foreign Lands” – We’ve got another band named after a Simpsons quote. I do so enjoy these.
“A Star Is Burns” – The Simpsons Season 6 episode review – A little love for one of Season 6’s many gems.
Ten funny gene names – part 2 – I learned something today:
2. Maggie – Fruit flies with a mutated Maggie gene results in arrested development, like Maggie Simpsons from the cartoon series The Simpsons.
Trial and Error – And finally, I get to end with some academic types who agree with us:
For the group survey and interview assignment my group and I have decided to look at how families are represented in television sitcoms and if it has changed over time, with specific reference to The Simpsons (pre 2000) and Modern Family.
No point going beyond that.
Dead Homer Society 
10 responses to “Reading Digest: Perfectly Timed Door Slam Edition”
It’s kind of interesting that it’s now sort of become Common Knowledge that The Simpson’s after a certain year is bad.
Yes, but there are a lot of disagreements over the exact year. While one person can pinpoint the show ‘s decline at 2000, others think 1998 was the year the show began to flounder while some will tell you the show ‘s magic began to fade in 1994. I know some of the reviewers on Jump the old Jump the Shark website said that after season 5, the show became lame and the Family Guy episode “The Juice is Loose” had a line from Mayor West telling Homer Simpson, “We don’t love you like we did in 1994.”
Me, personally? The Simpsons tanked around the time people were making a big deal about South Park, but before Family Guy and Futurama premiered, so…1997.
(Cont’d) And, hell, there may be people out there who think the show went downhill somewhere in the 2000s, specifically after the movie, or worse yet, that the show is still good.
Yeah, I agree with you about the general discrepancy of when the decline was and your opinion of when the decline occured. I think most people who had watched the show from its start actually see the decline at this time regardless of how obsessesive or casual of fans they are/were. I think it’s mostly people at the No Homers Club and some younger fans who see otherwise.
I think there are more people willing to claim that they’re fans of The Simpsons than there was during 2000s because there seems to be a greater mutual understanding that the show was once great, but now is terrible. While stating you’re a fan still requires a bit of clarification, many people now seem to get that this usually refers to the fact that you like the older seasons of the show, but not the newer.
Season 8. My detective friend Roy also told.me why SNPP stopped doing reviews during season 13. I think. My glass of water I was holding shattered on the floor. Also Season 8 was the last season of classic Simpsons. It really should have ended at Behind The Laughter.
Thanks for the links!
And I think part of the reason the door slam worked so well is because it added a touch of reality to the scene. In real life, Lisa wouldn’t wait until Bart finishes his sentence to close a door, so why should she in the show?
Something that I’ve often noticed about most of the characters Hank Azaria voices is that their voices are often noticeably inspired by real-life people or characters from other works even though the characters from The Simpsons aren’t blatant impersonations (that is, they aren’t supposed to be like how Harry Shearer has voiced President H.W. Bush, but rather how Azaria has The Sarcastic Guy sound much like Charles Bronson). While both Dan Castellaneta and Shearer have done this sort of thing with some of their characters, too, the impressions never struck me as being as blatant even in circumstances where this is supposed to be the case (such as Mayor Quimby sounding like President Kennedy) even though the impressions are still good. There’s something more cartoony about the voices Azaria does, but I can’t quite say why that’s the case probably because I lack greater technical understanding of voice work. I find Shearer’s voices to typically seem the least cartoony of the three main male voice actors, and I mean that as a compliment, too–it’s a quality that I think helped make many of his characters seem like real people in the show’s prime.
Well said.
Dustin Hoffman episode of The Simpsons aired this month 24 years ago I think, Lisa’s Substitute.
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