The numbers are in and last night’s flashback laden series of plot twists was watched by 6.08 million people. That’s not a good number, it’s the third lowest all season and it’s below what Zombie Simpsons was averaging last winter. But it’s above what Season 21 needs to keep its average viewership above the dismal 7.07 million viewers for Season 20. As usual Family Guy pulled in slightly more (despite being a rerun) than Zombie Simpsons and both Family Guy spinoffs did slightly worse. Depending on how many episodes are left (there’ve been 13, Zombie Simpsons seasons typically have 20-22)…
Category: Ratings FAIL
There’s No Mystery, Zombie Simpsons Sucks
For tonight Zombie Simpsons seems to have completely forgotten that it’s nominally a comedy program, instead it decided to be a mystery show. Unfortunately it wasn’t even a good mystery show, with lazy “revelations” coming up like clockwork before each commercial break. Despite the excess of plot twists there was more stalling and exposition than usual. Take, for example, Lisa’s trip to the attic at the beginning. She got stuck with the attic door, Bart then took up a lot of time helping her. Nothing funny was going on, but it did eat some clock. Once she made it too…
Zombie Simpsons Tanks Again
The 20th anniversary shine appears to have completely worn off and Zombie Simpsons is slinking into its usual winter doldrums. Last night’s bizarre compilation of curling scenes and unrelated montages was watched by a mere 5.87 million people. Hooray. For the record that’s the second straight episode to fall below six million and the fifth worst ever, narrowly missing out on fourth to last season’s “Coming to Homerica”. As usual Family Guy did better while its two spinoffs did slightly worse. The only disappointing thing about this number is that it isn’t lower. Right now the crown of Least Watched…
Watered Down Orange Drink Has More Substance Than This
“My god man, I’ve watered her down as far as she’ll go. I cannot water no more!” – Groundskeeper Willie There were three competitive curling scenes in this episode. They all started and ended the same way. I don’t think they recycled any footage but, really, would it surprise you? In between curling segments the audience was repeatedly clubbed in the face with the fact that Homer and Marge love each other and a number of clock killing montages, including a hallucination, a one joke opening ceremony, and a Fantasia take off that finally got us to the credits. Despite…
Football-less Zombie Simpsons Crashes and Burns
“Where’s your messiah now, Flanders?” – Chief Wiggum With no lead in from the NFL, no anniversary special, no massive promotional effort Zombie Simpsons’ popularity has plummeted to earth like so much half chewed fish. Last night’s test of audience patience drew a puny 5.11 million viewers. Is that the lowest rating ever? Yes, yes it is. The only problem with it is that it’s just slightly higher than Family Guy Spinoff #1 which came in at 5.06 in the 9:30 slot. I think we can safely conclude that there will be no lasting bump from nostalgia related anniversary viewers.
It Could (But Won’t) Happen to You
“In fact, every copy of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” has been checked out from the Springfield Public Library. Of course the book does not contain any hints on how to win the lottery, it is rather a chilling tale of conformity gone mad.” – Kent Brockman We have an entire week to pick apart this pedestrian and lifeless Zombie Simpsons outing. There are plenty of recycled jokes, gaping plot contradictions, and labored set pieces with which to play. (When winning the lottery is the most relatable thing that happens there is little hope for anything but fail.) For right now…
Better Lucky than Good
The numbers are in and as expected they are monstrous. FOX’s relentless anniversary promotion combined with the highest scoring playoff game in NFL history prompted 21.07 million people to watch last night’s Zombie Simpsons. According to TVbytheNumbers that number is likely to change somewhat (probably down, if I read it correctly) because the Packers/Cardinals game didn’t finish until after 8pm. So we’ll update this when the final numbers are available. By 8:30, when Spurlock’s thing was supposed to start, the numbers were down to a still large, but by no means enormous, 13.46 million. I’ll do the math when the…
Zombie Simpsons Violates My “No Romantic Comedy” Rule for Me
“Morons, pathetic morons in my employ stealing my precious money. This is hopeless. None of these cretins deserves a promotion.” – C.M. Burns I was slightly afraid we’d be in for some schlock on account of the whole fake 20th Anniversary thing. I should have been more afraid. No only did the B-plot pervert Burns beyond even what Zombie Simpsons has done before,* but the last half of the A-plot was a romantic comedy that would’ve made Julia Roberts ashamed. Also, it’s not a good idea to take up a lot of your run time with things that are deliberately…
Marketing Campaign Effective Despite Awful Content
“I just ripped the head off Mr. Honeybunny.” – Bart Simpson The numbers are in and Zombie Simpsons pulled a disappointingly decent one. Last night’s affront to the comedy gods was watched by 8.65 million people. That makes it the fourth highest rated episode all year and raises the average for Season 21 to 8.23 million. It throttled The Cleveland Show (6.96 million) and even beat Family Guy (8.10 million). I’d say all the 20th anniversary propaganda is having its intended effect. Next week we’ll probably see an even bigger number with the Spurlock special and all the attendant anniversary…
Zombie Simpsons Follows the Formula
Let’s do the checklist: An opening that’s completely unrelated to everything and eats clock with things that have nothing to do with each other or the rest of the episode (the two most time consuming being the octopus and Marge looking at intentionally boring photos on her digital camera). Homer flipping out repeatedly (and crying). Other characters flipping out and acting crazy in a humor free B-plot (Bart, Lisa and Nelson). Celebrity guest as himself in a way that has nothing to do with anything else. A recycled idea (Homer tries to write for newspaper). Lunatic plot twist that allows…
Cleveland Show Strikes Back
The numbers are in and last night’s Zombie Simpsons snorefest was watched by a mere 7.11 million people. That’s the second lowest number all year and brings the Season 21 average down to a mere 8.23 million viewers. Adding insult to injury, an all new Cleveland Show came in at 7.68 million, which narrows Zombie Simpsons’ lead in their utterly meaningless contest to 5-3. This was also the last new Zombie Simpsons before the big 20th anniversary show in January, that one will have massive promotional hype, Spurlock’s special, and the release of the Season 20 DVDs to promote it. …
People Like Witches (Sort of)
The numbers are in and last night’s gruel-thin effort at witch humor managed to entice 8.99 million viewers. That’s the third highest all year and brings the Season 21 average up to 8.39 million. In addition to that small triumph, Zombie Simpsons not only managed to out draw The Cleveland Show (giving it a commanding 5-2 lead in their increasingly lopsided ratings duel), but also beat Family Guy by more than half a million viewers. That’s the first time in a long time a first run Zombie Simpsons has done that. Oh well.
Zombie Simpsons Ignored by 97.7% of US Population
Last nights exercise in dull was watched by a mere 7.04 million unfortunate souls. That number is the the lowest of the season and lower than any episode ever broadcast in the fall. Even though I know these numbers don’t mean anything it’s still nice to see a really awful one like this. I can’t wait for the winter ratings because if this fall’s numbers are any indicator they are going to be terrible. On the downside Zombie Simpsons won it’s completely meaningless competition with The Cleveland Show giving it a 4-2 lead overall. That’s one less ivory back scratcher…
Pornographic Cross Promotion (Kinda) Succeeds
Between the drawings of Marge in Playboy and the plot being launched around an (implied) nude calendar, Zombie Simpsons is now more or less totally basing its appeal on masturbatory fanboy voyeurism. Dave and I watched last night’s crapfest together and I was drunk and traumatized enough when we wrote it up that I forgot to set an over/under on the ratings. It’s just as well because the over would’ve had it. Last night’s rambling, Desperate Housewives-esque tale of improbable career moves and potential promiscuity drew in 9.04 million viewers. That makes it the second highest rated episode of the…
Zombie Simpsons Halloween Scores Historically Low
The numbers are in and they are deliciously poor. Last night’s Hitchcock-copy-pasta/zombie-retread/musical-number was only able to bore 8.59 million viewers. That’s an improvement from last week, but it’s well below the high for the season and it’s the first Treehouse of Horror to ever fall below 10 million viewers. I find this encouraging if for no other reason than the Treehouse of Horror episodes are almost always the highest rated of the season. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of twentieth anniversary promotional stuff going on for the rest of the year leading up to Spurlock’s little special on…
Zombie Simpsons Abandons Precedent
“Please Lis, they prefer to be called the ‘living impaired’.” – Bart Simpson Typically there are three segments to a Treehouse of Horror episode. (Discounting the opening with the monsters at the Halloween party, which was pointless filler if ever there was such a thing.) The first segment was basically a chase scene that had no jokes. The second segment was another zombie segment (that also had a chase scene that had no jokes). The third segment was a bizarre musical theater number that had, quite literally, nothing to do with Halloween with the exception of Kang and Kodos being…
Family Guy Spinoff Wins Again
Last night’s lifeless mixed martial arts run through drew a measly 7.55 million viewers, that’s a new low for the season and lower than all but two of the fall episodes from last season. Even if low ratings for the first run episodes have almost no impact on whether or not the show is continued, it’s still enjoyable to watch Zombie Simpsons struggle. Of greater hilarity is that Zombie Simpsons was once again bested by The Cleveland Show, which pulled 7.78 million viewers. In the three weeks both have been on the air, Cleveland leads 2-1. Next week is the…
Zombie Simpsons Eats More Brains
Image from addletters.com’s Chalkboard Generator. The numbers are in and they’re up slightly from last week. Yesterday’s meandering 22 minutes of mental anguish was watched by 9.31 million unfortunate people. That’s up by a million from last week. Zombie Simpsons did manage to edge The Cleveland Show this week, though as usual it fell short of the original Family Guy. Oh well.
Rambling
“I got you fired, didn’t I?” – Bart Simpson In case you were wondering, the creators of Zombie Simpsons do have the ability to list social networking systems. And there was a Rodney Dangerfield impersonation. And a zany replacement teacher. And a giant globe. And a muffin store. And Homer cried for no reason. And a formulaic sitcom guilt ending. And sorry for starting all my sentences with a conjunction, but watching that 22 minutes of disconnected, painfully boring set pieces destroyed my ability to link thoughts together or use transitions of any kind. About five minutes into The Cleveland…
Zombie Simpsons Rocked by Family Guy Spinoff
Ahh, the sweet cleansing feeling of numbers. Zombie Simpsons scored the lowest season premier in its history last night, inflicting itself upon a mere 8.21 million people. The Cleveland Show, premiering directly afterwards, increased the ratings by more than a million people (to 9.42). (Family Guy itself checked in at 10.17 million.) There are at least a million Americans out there who’ve become so turned off by Zombie Simpsons that they didn’t even watch it while waiting for the latest from Seth MacFarlane. Excellent. For historical comparison sake, here are the last five season premiers of Zombie Simpsons: Season 16…