Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user istolethetv. “How come no Chippendales dancers ever come in to renew their licenses?” – Selma Bouvier “They carpool, that’s the problem.” – Patty Bouvier
Tag: A Fish Called Selma
Misguided Attention Whores Maul Zombie Simpsons; Also, Katy Perry Was There (Updated)
“Why’d they make that one Muppet out of leather?” – Bart Simpson Let me start by saying that I thought the first segment, while poorly executed in places, wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t without its problems, the montage* was pointless, the pacing was skewed, and the show-don’t-tell violation on the reindeer stew spoiled what could’ve been a great joke. But having Santa, in the person of Krusty no less, run his organization like a particularly inept and heartless multinational corporation (reminiscent of Futurama’s Santa), basically worked. There were some decent subtle gags (“Unionize” scrawled on the back of the bench, the picture of the snowman guard’s kids), and even a couple of good lines (“But by today’s standards, naughty’s nothing. I didn’t get anybody pregnant, I didn’t Facebook a kid to death”). The twist ending was actually appropriate, and Run D.M.C. was a nice touch. The rest of it was a shambles, including the strange wraparound story that they dropped like a hot poker when it came time for their big, laugh-tracked finish. The Martha Stewart segment was a one-joke exercise in repetition, and Lisa’s bit was so bizarre as to be nigh indescribable. The Inglourious Basterds thing was so out of left field and out of place that I’m not 100% sure its inclusion wasn’t some kind of massive editing error. And then, of course, there was the ending. Rarely has a piece of television missed the mark quite so spectacularly. And I mean “spectacularly” literally, as in something so striking you can’t look away from it, like a fifty-five car pileup or William Shatner’s spoken word performances. About the only good thing that can be said about Zombie Simpsons’ puppet segment is that in the pantheon of Christmas related pop culture mistakes, The Star Wars Holiday Special is probably unassailable at #1. We may, however, have a new candidate for #2. The numbers are in, and once again football overruns boosted them. This week’s preliminary numbers show 9.56 million viewers gritted their teeth and wished the real Muppets were still on teevee, and while TV by the Numbers cautions that these are not final, I don’t have much hope that they’ll drop too far. I’ll update this when they come in anyway. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to try to figure out if there is any way this can be defended as some kind of intentionally bad meta-joke or performance art piece. I am not optimistic. *I am continually amazed at the hallucinogenic potency of television marijuana. My weed never does that. Update 9 December 2010: The final numbers are in and, as I feared, at 9.54 million viewers they barely went down. On the plus side, it looks like FOX doesn’t have a late national game this week so there shouldn’t be much football overrun.
Quote of the Day
“That’s right boys! Troy’s back from the gutter and he’s brought someone with with him!” – Troy McClure
Troy McClure Tattoo Suggestions
“Can I play the piano anymore?” – Troy McClure as George Taylor “Of course you can!” – Dr. Zaius “Well I couldn’t before!” – Troy McClure as George Taylor We got an e-mail the other day from reader R H who is considering getting a Troy McClure tattoo. The current plan is to get Troy in “Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off!” as you can see at right. The e-mail wanted to know if we had any better ideas for a good Troy McClure image. Obviously, Troy was in some memorable costumes over the years, but I couldn’t think of anything better than the Charlton Heston spacesuit. (Bonus points for all of Hartman’s Heston impersonations over the years.) So, anyone got any ideas? I don’t think you can add images in the comments, but if anyone has one, e-mail it to us and I’ll add it to this post. Oh, and we have been promised pictures once the ink goes on.
Quote of the Day
“Hi, I remember you from such film strips as ‘Locker Room Towel Fight: The Blinding of Larry Driscoll’.” – Lisa Simpson “You know, I was one of the first to speak out against horse play.” – Troy McClure
Doing Less with More
“Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from such films as ‘The Greatest Story Ever Hulaed’ and ‘They Came to Burgle Carnegie Hall’.” – Troy McClure In three weeks there will be a Zombie Simpsons episode titled “The Greatest Story Ever D’ohed”. This is, obviously, a play on “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, the 1965 Charlton Heston movie about Jebus. It goes almost without saying that The Simpsons already did a pun on that movie, way back in Season 7 (“A Fish Called Selma”) when Troy McClure uttered the quote above. Let’s compare and contrast. The Simpsons took a famous movie and used it to make a joke (and it wasn’t even the only joke in that line), and when they did so they came up with something original. Zombie Simpsons recycled a joke, mindlessly inserted a catchphrase, and made the lackluster result the title of the entire episode. Or, to put it another way, The Simpsons crammed creativity into a tiny part of their episode, Zombie Simpsons took a shortcut and used it more prominently. If you’re going to go over ground that’s already been covered you could at least put a little effort into it, is all I’m saying. (Note: Assuming you don’t count the Shary Bobbins episode the first time “D’oh” was ever used in an episode title was Season 10. Counting the one in three weeks they’ll have used it seven times since then. Zombie Simpsons can’t even gin up original puns.)
Quote of the Day
“Troy! Mac Parker. Ever hear of… Planet of the Apes?” – MacArthur Parker “Uh… the movie, or the planet?” – Troy McClure “The brand new, multimillion dollar musical. And you, are starring, as the human.” – MacArthur Parker “It’s the part I was born to play, baby!” – Troy McClure
“New Kids on the Blecch” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
“That took a lot of class.” – Troy McClure I had genuinely forgotten just how bad some of these Season 12 episodes are. I remember when this boy band episode was first broadcast, and I remember hating it, but I’d forgotten how painfully long it is. And I know it clocks in at the usual amount of time, but the third act of this one is terribly boring, even by the standards of Zombie Simpsons. There’s a concert on the ship, then it sails to New York, then they blow up the Mad Magazine building for some reason and it just keeps on going to the point that it feels like it’s never going to end. Oh yeah, and “‘N Sync” shows up to be fawned over instead of mocked. Just a truly awful spectacle. Anyway, there are a whopping eleven people commenting on this one, including one from ‘N Sync. 1:15: Mike Scully had to yell at the writers for not coming up with any good ideas and this piece of shit was the result. 3:15: Discussing how star struck everyone was to have ‘N Sync around. 4:45: Still talking about how popular ‘N Sync was. 5:20: Laughing at the stupidity of their band notification joke. 6:30: Now they’re discussing how all of the ‘N Sync songs sounded the same. 7:45: Discussing how the guy they got to produce the crappy songs was an asshole to the singers they brought in. The purpose, of course, was to get that authentic boy band sound that really made this episode oh so special. 8:20: Discussing how faithfully their crappy fake boy band singing imitates actual crappy boy band singing. Seriously. 9:30: In keeping with the other Season 12 DVD commentaries, this is the part where they laugh about how strange and bizarre the plot of this episode is. 11:40: Discussing the fact that they had no ending for this episode, somebody says, “It was during a period when a lot of conspiracies were afoot on the show. When people weren’t what they seemed.” Basically that means that they didn’t have an ending for this half-cooked story and just pulled something out of their asses. What’s more, they did that a lot. Yet again, the apathy towards the quality of their own show is really telling. 12:40: Talking about an ‘N Sync concert. 13:10: Someone mockingly calls the story “airtight” to general laughter. They just don’t care. 13:20: Discussing whether or not the Village People were an inspiration for this insane Navy conspiracy ploy, “That’s way more thought than we put into it.” Yup. 15:40: “Another great song”. Seriously, half this episode is bad imitations of worse songs, and these guys are thoroughly entertained by it. 18:00: Long story from ‘N Sync guy about the perils of lip syncing. 19:30: Lip syncing story still going on. 19:50: Laughing at the wild stupidity of having ‘N Sync show up for no reason. 20:35: Mildly interesting note in that they had to pull this…
Quote of the Day
“You’re asking me to live a lie, I don’t know if I can do that.” – Selma McClure “It’s remarkably easy!” – Troy McClure