Wednesday was the 30th Anniversary of “The Crepes of Wrath”. So I busted out my Season 1 DVDs and spent some quarantime listening to Wes Archer and George Meyer’s commentary. Wikipedia says these DVDs were released in September 2001, so the commentaries were probably recorded in early 2001 or so. From early 2001, this episode was 11 years old. Today it is 30 years old, so the time between the commentary recording and now is roughly double that between the episode and the recording. This gives an interesting flavor some of what’s said. By the time this was recorded, Archer…
Category: Spews Truth from Every Orifice
The Telltale Head Spews Truth
Today’s post is another installment in our long-running “series” of DVD commentary posts; the lucky victim this time is Season 1’s classic “The Telltale Head.” Featured speakers on the commentary are the episode’s director Rich Moore and writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss. I’ll keep it short and simple (read: descriptive and lacking in any meaningful/substantive analysis), but here are the highlights from their conversation for me: (Times are approximate) 00:17 – Supposedly there were a lot of Elvis sightings when this episode was written, hence the chalkboard gag 00:31 – Early intro didn’t have Burns or Smithers in the…
DVD Commentary: Bart the Genius
Be gentle, it’s my first one of these. Four guys on this commentary, David Silverman, Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Jon Vitti. David Silverman talks about the popularity of the show after the Christmas Special Matt Groening talks about the development of the now classic “Simpsons” main titles music Blackboard and main titles were originally a way to pad the show length, but as the show got more sophisticated the writers didn’t want to cut anything This episode was Jon Vitti’s first 30-minute script, and David Silverman’s first full-length directorial debut Koreans don’t have bananas, hence the miscoloring KWYJIBO was also later used…
Lisa the Beauty Queen Spews Truth
“What a feeling! I’m as happy as a smoker taking that first puff in the morning.” – Pageant Girl “That could be Lisa!” – Homer Simpson As usual with these early season commentaries, there are a small enough number of people that they can have an actual conversation, the topic never strays far from the episode, there’s lots of genuine laughter, and Jean sounds like he’s actually having fun instead of watching the clock and trying to fill time while everyone else sits silently as some horrible Zombie Simpsons crap parades across the screen. Plus this one has a Bob…
’Round Springfield Spews Truth
“Two hundred and fifty dollars? But I need that album to honor the memory of Bleeding Gums Murphy.” – Lisa Simpson “He’s dead? Well, why didn’t you say so?” – Comic Book Guy It doesn’t come up in individual statements, but when you listen to the commentary for this episode right after you listen to the commentary for “Alone Again Natura-Diddily”, the most striking thing is the absence of feeling the need to explain things. Instead of anyone getting defensive or saying something about, “no really, this was a good idea”, it’s all just trivia about the episode, the occasional…
“A Star Is Burns” Spews Truth
“The film is just me in front of a brick wall for an hour and a half. It cost eighty million dollars.” – Rainier Wolfcastle “How do you sleep at night?” – Jay Sherman “On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies.” – Rainier Wolfcastle If these meta-commentary posts are ever enlightening, this one promises to be minimally so. I don’t think I’ve ever heard one that is just this straight up funny. It’s basically twenty minutes of Lovitz, Jean, Castellaneta and company ragging on each other personally and professionally in sometimes really mean ways while they…
“Itchy & Scratchy & Marge” Spews Truth
“I’ve started a crusade against cartoon violence. I can protect my own children, but there are many others whose minds are being warped every afternoon at four.” – Marge Simpson “That reminds me, I gotta get over to Milhouse’s and . . . play sports.” – Bart Simpson “Alright.” – Marge Simpson “And I’m going over to Janie’s again. We’re going to be, um, making the most of our childhood years.” – Lisa Simpson “Have Fun!” – Marge Simpson “We will.” – Bart and Lisa Simpson They talk quite a bit about this idea near the end, but “Itchy &…
“New Kid On the Block” Spews Truth
“She’s beautiful. Say something clever.” – Bart’s Brain “I fell on my bottom.” – Bart Simpson “D’oh!” – Bart’s Brain This commentary is mildly annoying in that it’s basically a bunch of guys congratulating each other on being awesome. On the other hand, all of them are fantastically funny, so not only is it fun to hear, but they’re self aware enough to keep it entertaining. They only occasionally talk about the episode, but unlike when that happens on Zombie Simpsons commentaries, here it’s not them avoiding what’s happening so much as it is them clowning around about things they…
“Separate Vocations” Spews Truth
“Looks like you just bought yourself a lottery ticket, to jail!” – Chief Wiggum “He’s unconscious, sir.” – Lou “Ah, they can still hear things.” – Chief Wiggum This post was originally going to go up yesterday for the 20th anniversary of this episode’s first broadcast, but about halfway through I noticed that there was a “hidden” audio track that turned out to be a one man commentary from Al Jean. (Side note: Dear DVD people, drop the “easter egg” crap, will ya? Just like hidden tracks on CDs, the game is up. You can’t hide anything from modern media…
“Blood Feud” Spews Truth from Every Orifice
“Perhaps there is no moral to this story.” – Lisa Simpson “Exactly, it’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.” – Homer Simpson About halfway through this commentary, Al Jean notes that the story of a mean letter to the boss had been previously done on The Honeymooners and was a kind of “sitcom staple”. He was saying it sort of defensively, like he’d heard it as a criticism that the episode hadn’t been that original. But parodying sitcom staples was a big part of what The Simpsons did, especially in Seasons 1 and 2. It wasn’t just plots either,…
“The Springfield Files” Spews Truth
“Wait a minute, Scully, what’s the point of this test?” – Fox Mulder “No point. I just thought he could stand to lose a little weight.” – Dana Scully “His jiggling is almost hypnotic.” – Fox Mulder “Yes. It’s like a lava lamp.” – Dana Scully There’s an interesting flow to this commentary. There’s a hefty enough catch of guest stars and X-Files stuff that they start out talking about what sparked the idea and how things finally got going. Then, about halfway, they’ve filled in most of the details there and start paying closer attention to what’s on the…
“Saturdays of Thunder” Spews Truth
“Dear God, not again!” – Dave from the National Fatherhood Institute Toward the end of this commentary, right after Martin slaps Bart to get him to pay attention, Jean comments on how much violence there is in this one. He laughs as he recalls that it might have been a reaction to how stressed out everyone was while they were doing this. I can’t comment on that, but he’s right that there are a lot of violent images in here (Nelson whipping Bart as they race, Martin crashing and getting set on fire, even the unfortunate shark attack). The difference…
“Burns’ Heir” Spews Truth
Image yoinked from Wikipedia. “But I did get Paul McCartney out of Wings.” – Conformco Guy “You idiot! He was the most talented one!” – Homer Simpson Even with twenty years of viewings under my belt, I am continually amazed at the sheer number of cultural references and allusions in The Simpsons. There isn’t a guest voice and the focus of the episode is a story about Burns and Bart, but they bring up or crib from about five different movies and make fun of half a dozen celebrities. They toss them off with remarkable speed so that things never…
“Cape Feare” Spews Truth
“Okay , it’s over! Get ’em out of here.” – Moe Aside from the way they don’t go off on random tangents and seem to be actually enjoying these episodes, the next biggest difference between these old commentaries and the ones on Zombie Simpsons is simply the number of people on them. On Season 12 or 13, six people would qualify as a very small contingent, here it’d be quite large. I don’t know if that’s the result of the age of the episodes or scheduling conflicts or what, but it makes things a bit more coherent (i.e. they can…
“A Milhouse Divided” Spews Truth
“As you know, there’s been a lot of talk about divorce lately, and I think your mom might not be happy with me.” – Homer Simpson “You’ve done a lot of crazy stuff over the years, and she stood by you. Why would she leave you now?” – Lisa Simpson “Cause there’s lots of stuff she doesn’t know about.” – Homer Simpson “You mean like your poker shack out in the swamp?” – Lisa Simpson “Mmm-Hmm.” – Homer Simpson “She knows.” – Lisa Simpson I’ve been listening to a few of these older commentaries and, though I’m sure I’ll be…
“Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment” Spews Truth
“Now, today’s Christian doesn’t think he needs God. He thinks he’s got it made. He’s got his hi-fi, his boob tube, and his instant pizza pie.” – Reverend Lovejoy “Ooh, pizza.” – Homer Simpson After we got such a positive response when we did those posts about “Lisa’s First Word”, and caught in the barren wasteland of the week it’s been around here, I thought I’d go back through the commentary tracks for The Simpsons and see what’s there. For the record, I have only ever heard a tiny handful of these. I got most of the DVD sets as…