“We need a cure! We need a cure!” – Mob “Why the only cure is bedrest. Anything I give you would only be a placebo.” – Dr. Hibbert “Where do we get these placebos?!” – Panicked Woman “Maybe there’s some in this truck!” – Panicked Man Howdy, campers, how’s everyone doing with the ongoing unpleasantness? My life has certainly been turned upside down, though I’m on team “Stuck At Home” not team “Doing All the Real Work”, so I’ve got it fairly easy. And while there are a lot of people that I love and care about who are at…
Category: Smells Like Otto’s Jacket
Wednesday Morning Cartoons
“And, so, as Abraham Lincoln sat in Ford’s Theater that night, John Wilkes Booth entered, drew his gun, and- . . . well, that’s it. Have a nice summer everyone.” – Miss Hoover “But what happened in Ford’s Theater?” – Kid “Was President Lincoln okay?” – Ralph Wiggum “He was fine . . . go home, Ralph.” – Miss Hoover This episode is a Fourth of July favorite for a lot of reasons, but there is a certain bittersweet feeling to it. This is the show near it’s end; so while it’s great, you know it doesn’t have much time…
Sunday Morning Cartoons
“For your free brochure, send five dollars to Dimoxinil, four-eighty-five Hair Plaza, Hair City, Utah.” – TV Announcer The above is one of those dense, layers thick jokes that most shows can’t pull off even once but that The Simpsons tossed around with abandon. Not only are they demanding payment for a free brochure, they’re doing so from an address that is appropriately stupid for those kinds of woo. That it’s in Utah, one of those weirdo states where fellatio is still illegal, just makes it better. There are more jokes in that one line than there are in entire…
Thanksgiving Programming Update
“Thank you for watching Movie for a Dreary Afternoon.” – TV Announcer Everything is a bit of a duketastrophe here in the States on account of Thanksgiving. But there will be a Crazy Noises tomorrow and there will quite likely be some kind of Reading Digest on Friday. Please stay tuned for paid political announcements brought to you by the Friends of Kang & Kodos: No, I don’t know why YouTube is in stretched widescreen now. Yes, here’s another one:
“Weekend at Burnsie’s” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
Bonus: crazy backwards Spanish version. I was sort of looking forward to watching this episode. I honestly had not seen it in seven years or so and I remembered not completely hating it. Turns out it sucks, and the few good weed jokes are stranded in Act 2. Act 1 is Homer gaining the ability to control crows; Act 3 is the lifeless body of Mr. Burns being used as a puppet in an homage to the cinematic and comedy genius of the “Weekend at Bernie’s” franchise. To my surprise, however, the commentary was pretty good. They actually talked about…
Thursday Evening Cartoons
“When will I learn? The answer to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle. They’re on teevee!” – Homer Simpson In “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”, Homer attempts to prove to his family that they are, in fact, terrible. In the process, they peep in on some other households to see whether or not everyone lives in the same misery they do. After he fails, Homer wallows in the sorry state of the family he heads. Being Homer, he does so with a beer at Moe’s. Eddie and Lou walk in with a police German Shepherd. After drinking…
How to Hurt Homer
“Oh fudge, that’s broken. Fiddle de dee, that will require a tetanus shot.” – Homer Simpson Let’s face it, watching Homer Simpson suffer is a lot of fun, whether his kids are fighting over who loves him more (You do! No, You do!), his wife’s getting promoted ahead of him, or he’s getting hit in the head with softballs, circular saws or nightsticks. Or, at least, it used to be a lot of fun. Somewhere along the way Zombie Simpsons forgot that Homer’s supposed to be a regular guy. Instead, they turned him into one of those cheap, inflatable punching…
Sunday Morning Cartoons
“We worked so hard and now it’s all gone. We ended up with nothing because the three of us can’t share.” – Bart Simpson “What’s your point?” – Milhouse van Houten “Nothing, just kinda ticks me off.” – Bart Simpson That is how you end an episode between Bart and Milhouse. Or, if you need them to reconcile, you can have Bart smash open a Magic 8 Ball on Milhouse’s skull, but it’s a sweet moment because he didn’t use the brick, broken bottle or pair of scissors. Flowers and apologies? Fuck off, Zombie Simpsons.
No Just God Would Permit This
What the fucking fuck was that? I miss the Moe who threatened to gut a ten year old child and sexually harassed his cocktail waitress. I miss the Maggie who organized the resistance at the Ayn Rand School for Tots and caught a bottle as it sailed towards Homer’s head. Also, and I don’t want to watch it again to be sure, but I think the part of Bart Simpson was played by Casper, the ghost of his good friend Richie Rich. Edited to add that the O/U on the ratings is set at 6.2 million viewers. Ugh, what an…
Saturday Morning Cartoons
“Just sign this form, and the money will be yours.” – C.M. Burns The above is a perfect example of proper plot exposition and minor character usage. I would submit this in direct contrast to, say, Rev. Lovejoy not being holy for a while, Skinner and Comic Book Guy chasing an ancient riddle and especially magical tomato sauce. Homer needs $5,000, Burns gives it to him because Homer doesn’t understand the word “usury”, and the story moves along. There are no words wasted and no more time taken than necessary. The five grand is never mentioned again because it…
Wednesday Evening Cartoons
“I’m alive! I’m alive and I couldn’t be happier! From this day forward, I vow to live life to its fullest!” – Homer Simpson The Simpsons often liked to mess around with their end credits, either playing a different song or having some remaining dialogue continue while they roll. One of the most underrated examples of this is the end of “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish” (Season 2, Disc 2). After shouting the above, the credits roll while Homer sits on the couch, eating pork rinds (light!) and watching professional bowling. It’s great all by itself, but the…
Saturday Morning Cartoons
“You know, when that Simpson boy showed up it took years off my life.” – Mr. Bouvier “Will you stop it, she went out with the good one.” – Mrs. Bouvier The image above is among the many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of reasons that The Simpsons flat out works in a way that no other television show, and certainly not Zombie Simpsons, works. It’s not that other shows have never used snapshot photos to advance the plot, it’s the fact that Simpsons is so dense with jokes and ideas that rather than spending even a moment…
Upon Further Reflection, This Still Sucks
“Noooooooooo!” – Principal Skinner I was expecting Zombie Simpsons to get picked up for another season; epguides.com already has episodes listed for next fall and since each craptacular one supposedly takes a whole year to produce it stood to reason that Season 21 was a forgone conclusion. But the news yesterday that they were being picked up for two more seasons was like a second, unexpected, football in the groin. According to some of those links this will push them to 493 episodes. 493! Of which less than a third are actually up to snuff. Admittedly, I am no expert…
Simpsonized Simpsons
“If he marries your mother, Marge, we’ll be brother and sister! And then, our kids, they’ll be horrible freaks with pink skin, no overbites and five fingers on each hand!” – Homer Simpson That Simpsonizer website is the best thing real fans got out of that mostly crappy movie; I hope they never take it down. And so, for no reason whatsoever, I put images of the Simpsons themselves into the Simpsonizer. Presented without further comment.