“Listen, Spielbergo, Schindler and I are like peas in a pod. We’re both factory owners, we both made shells for the Nazis! But mine worked, damn it!” – C.M. Burns
Tag: A Star Is Burns
Quote of the Day
“Oh, boy, this is gonna get worse before it gets better.” – Chief Wiggum
Quote of the Day
“Nice to meet you, Marge. I saw your hair from the plane. And you must be the man who didn’t know if he had a pimple or a boil.” – Jay Sherman “It was a gummy bear.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I’ve learned that I have a gift to share with the world. From now on, there’ll be a new Barnard Gumble! I’m working clean and sober!” – Barney Gumble “Congratulations, Barney. And enjoy your grand prize, a lifetime supply of Duff Beer.” – Mayor Quimby “Just hook it to my veins!” – Barney Gumble
Quote of the Day
“Action!” – Lisa Simpson “Hello, I’m Bart Simpson. In the past, I’ve brought you such classic films as Homer in the Shower and Homer on the Toilet. And now, I give you: The Eternal Struggle.” – Bart Simpson “Relaxed fit my Aunt Fanny! Stupid Dockers! Oh, the belt is buckled . . .” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“In culture, dead last…” – Kent Brockman “Eleanor, we’ve got to do something about this Depression. So I propose . . . oh, that’s right, I’m crippled.” – Krusty the Klown
Quote of the Day
“Tonight, we review an aging Charles Bronson in Death Wish 9.” – Jay Sherman “I wish I was dead. Oy.” – Charles Bronson
Reading Digest: Open Audition Edition
“Sir, the actors are here to audition for the part of you.” – Mr. Smithers “Excellent.” – C.M. Burns It’s a short Reading Digest this week because I’m still behind the eight-ball, and the Dead Homer Society inbox still has rainbow wigs and floppy shoes everywhere, but some Reading Digest is better than no Reading Digest (right?). Since the announcement of the (possible, still very unconfirmed) departure of Harry Shearer, plenty of people have been throwing their voices into the ring. This week, we’ve got three of them (kinda). We’ve also got some excellent usage, another Simpsons recasting, globetrotting Nancy Cartwright, (Britain, hurt feelings of), and a free silent movie starring Weird Al. Enjoy. I Hate the Sea and Everything In It: JAWS – Our friends at FLIM Springfield have done another of their .gif-tastic recastings, and this one is maybe their best yet. Here’s some chum to get you swimming their way: Prof. Frink as Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) Elementary chaos theory tells us that all Great White Sharks will eventually turn against humans and run amok in an orgy of blood! Here’s What The Opening of “The Simpsons” Looks Like Recreated With Stock Footage – This was making the rounds last week. It’s impressive, but pretty uneven. Some of the shorts are really good and pretty close to the intro. Others are a bit tenuous. This dude could easily replace Harry Shearer on ‘The Simpsons’ – This guy is very good (though some of the voices are a lot better than others), but it’s not hard to tell the difference, either. ▶ 28 Simpsons Impressions! Comedy Brian’s tribute to the Simpsons. – This is more than just Shearer voices, and again there are some very good ones in here (Burns and Patty & Selma, particularly). (Thanks for sending this in, Brian!) Harry Shearer Replacements for Mr. Burns – Reader Gary Lee sent in this compilation of clips with celebrities doing Burns lines. Way more Zombie Simpsons than I would’ve used, but some of them are very good. Michiana man aims to break world record for largest Simpsons collection – That is a lot of Simpsons stuff. What If The Simpsons Became Our Post-Apocalyptic Mythology? – A nice writeup of the play in Portland. ‘The Simpsons’ Nancy Cartwright Interview: Cannes Film Festival – Cartwright went to France to promote a small movie she did based on a one-woman show she did twenty years ago called “In Search of Fellini”. She does talk a bit about doing French for “The Crepes of Wrath” and artfully dodges a question about Shearer leaving. Nancy Cartwright Added To Supanova Perth & Sydney – And then she’s off to Australia. The Moving Picture Co. 1914 – Remember that silent movie with Weird Al that Mark Kirkland made? Well, now you can watch it. Movie review: Even the cast is too familiar with the plot to be scared by ‘Poltergeist’ – Excellent reference: The 1982 Tobe Hooper-Steven Spielberg film is an oft-telecast classic. But generations have been exposed to the plot and its loopiness, thanks to reruns of…
Quote of the Day
“The metric system is the tool of the Devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I likes it!” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson Happy 20th Anniversary to “A Star Is Burns”! Original airdate: 5 March 1995.
On the Family Guy Thing
“And if you ever want to visit my show…” – Jay Sherman “Nah, we’re not gonna be doing that.” – Bart Simpson Family Guy has been a raw nerved subject for Simpsons fans pretty much since it began. This owes in part to the fact that no less a person than Harry Shearer has said that it was cooked up by FOX for the express purposes of squeezing the underpaid voice actors on The Simpsons. (I don’t know if that’s actually true or not, but it certainly sounds like something FOX would do and Shearer is orders of magnitude more trustworthy than they are.) Whatever the initial motivation, however, the fact remains that Family Guy came on air right as The Simpsons was crumbling, on the same network, and with the same basic setup, and that’s more than enough to put the word “rip-off” on the tip of people’s tongues. Chasing the white rabbit of “who copied who” and “how closely” can be fun, but questions of creative influence and credit slip down bottomless holes when you try to pin them down. There’s no doubt that Family Guy wouldn’t have existed without the success of The Simpsons, but there’s also no doubt that Family Guy is a different show with a different sense of humor and a different creative core. Flame wars and exhausting discussions can rage in the borderlands between those two certainties, but, like most rabbit chases, they rarely produce any tangible insights or results. Further complicating matters is the way that Family Guy itself has fallen into the same kind of comedic mediocrity as Zombie Simpsons. It fell from a much (much) lower height, but, like it’s elder, it’s been reduced to going through the motions for years now. Being cartoons, both shows are immunized against the inevitable aging that kills even successful live action comedies after a few years. But critical attention and media interest have mostly moved on, and here in 2014, both shows are kept alive by habit and routine, on the part of the audiences and the staffs. The people watching know what they want to see (Homer get hurt, Stewie say something evil, etc.), and the people making the show know how to meet those minimal expectations. Both have become rote and safe entertainment, the kind of dull monotone that keeps enough people tuning in not because they want to see something new and exciting, but because they want something familiar and predicable. That is the context in which the crossover episode must be understood, and the irony that a show long criticized for mindlessly copying The Simpsons has blithely followed it into senility is easily the most amusing thing about its bloated, double-episode runtime. Family Guy, long a show that will happily acknowledge criticism even as it ignores the substance of said criticism, basically said so itself on Sunday: Chris: Yay! A crossover always brings out the best in each show! It certainly doesn’t smack of desperation. The priorities are always creative and not driven by marketing or- Stewie: Okay, that’s enough. As a…
Quote of the Day
“I like him. He’s smart, he’s sensitive, he’s clearly not obsessed with his physical appearance.” – Lisa Simpson “My ears are burning.” – Homer Simpson “Uh, I wasn’t talking about you, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “No, my ears are really burning. I wanted to see inside so I lit a q-tip.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Bart Simpson, meet Jay Sherman the critic.” – Homer Simpson “Hello.” – Jay Sherman “Hey, man, I really love your show. I think all kids should watch it! Ew, I suddenly feel so dirty.” – Bart Simpson Happy birthday Mike Reiss!
Quote of the Day
“’I’m looking for a film critic to help judge our festival. Did you know there are over six-hundred critics on teevee and Leonard Maltin is the best looking of them all?” – Marge Simpson “Eww.” – Lisa Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I don’t know what’s happening. It seems our profits have dropped thirty-seven percent.” – C.M. Burns “I’m afraid we have a bad image, sir. Market research shows people see you as something of an ogre.” – Mr. Smithers “I ought to club them and eat their bones!” – C.M. Burns
Reading Digest: Movie Reviews Edition
“You know something, Marge? It’s not that tough being a film cricket.” – Homer Simpson This week we both start and finish with Simpsons related movie reviews. In between we’ve got the two big stories that were all over the place, Elvis’s wife disliking the show, a couple of pieces of “aww”-type remembrances of the show (including the first time I’ve ever heard of someone named Julian watching “Homer’s Phobia”), some fan art, a great piece of New York City graffiti, the barest possible mention of the Season 15 DVDs, and a fantastic (and practical) Marge Simpson costume. Enjoy. [Spinoff Site Note: Hate, love or hate-love something you routinely see on or in books, magazines, video games, television, the internet or other media? The Ann Arbor Review of Books is looking for a few good bloggers. Click here for more information.] The Simpsons Movie – Our old friend Mike Amato has reached the movie in his review series and it is Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week: Part of this whole blog’s purpose was to rip off the nostalgia goggles and take a look at the series from my current-day point-of-view. As I’ve seen, it’s astonishing how absolutely dreadful the show has been for the last ten years, and the movie definitely reflects that to a degree. It makes so little an impact, and the commentary definitely has reasons that point to why… but I just can’t hate it like I do the rest of the series. It’s largely disappointing, and irritating in hearing the writers’ almost terrified relationship with its audience, but I can’t tear part of myself away from the fact that I finally, after so many years of waiting, got to see a Simpsons movie. It looked great, it sounded great… the script was clunky and all over the place… but at least it finally happened. I guess you can consider this the most apathetic recommendation ever. And I’d barely even call it a recommendation. He really goes into the whole thing, commentary and all. For a single summation of the whole great big bloated blockbuster, you aren’t going to do much better. Amazon Instant Video Users Beware! – Just a reminder that DRM sucks, has always sucked, and will always suck: I love the Simpsons, specifically the Treehouse of Horror episodes around Halloween. I own many of them on DVD, but Amazon has fortunately been able to fill in the gaps for me so this year was the first I could do a full marathon of every single episode. Since streaming (even with “high speed internet”) can be a drag I downloaded the Amazon episodes to my laptop using the “Unbox Video Player”. Each episode gives me two licenses for downloads to devices like my laptop, and two more for portable devices (like my Fire). […] In a nutshell, you have to UNINSTALL Amazon Unbox Video in order to release the license for an individual video. This has been your reminder that DRM sucks, has always…
“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 all laugh their assess off. It doesn’t translate well to text on the internet, but it’s hilarious. Seven people here, an all-star lineup of Al Jean, Jim Brooks, Mike Reiss, Jon Lovitz, Dan Castellaneta, Susie Dietter (director), and Ken Keeler (writer). 0:40 – Jean explains the backstory of how they got cancelled on ABC and Brooks came up with the idea of having them do a film festival to launch The Critic on FOX. I maintain that the fact that The Critic got cancelled twice is one of the great unacknowledged cultural losses of the 1990s. 1:20 – Talking about how they knew they’d “made cult” when The Critic went to Comedy Central. Allow me to simply say that I was one of the members. As I recall, when it first came to Comedy Central it was on at some ungodly timeslot, like 11:30pm on Sunday. I nearly died the first time I ever saw “Hee Haw: The Next Generation” (I laughed uncontrollably through the entire commercial break), and it was everything I remembered it was the first time I got to see it on syndication. 1:45 – Lovitz talking about how nice it was of them to write the script for him, which causes someone to crack on him for having his career go downhill. Lovitz, of course, can give as good as he gets. This is funny. 2:30 – They’re cracking up about A League of Their Own now and how Lovitz’s part was too small. Sample of banter: “The masturbation scene never would’ve worked, man, I saw that rough cut.” 3:00 – Lovitz just said “Al and Jean” trying to say “Al and Mike”. Apparently this has been a tic of his for a long time. They’re still just cracking up making fun of each other. I can’t really make it work as text, but it’s really funny. 3:40 – See above. They really seem like a) they like each other, and b) they’re having a good time. Note to Zombie Simpsons: this is much more fun to listen to than awkward silences and people politely complimenting each other. 4:15 – Tip from Keeler, Bart introducing “The Eternal Struggle” is a riff on Plan 9 From Outer Space. 4:40 – Noting the similarity of Homer struggling into his pants with Mr. Incredible doing the same thing before he gets back in shape in The Incredibles. 5:00 –…
Reading Digest: The Popularity of Others Edition
“The easiest way to be popular, is to leech of the popularity of others.” – Patty Bouvier “So we propose changing our name from ‘Springfield’, to ‘Seinfeld’.” – Selma Bouvier As expected, the word “Simpsons” appeared near the word “Gaga” an awful lot this week; there were links about seeing her behind the scenes, about what she thought of doing the voice, and just about any other bit of non-news that can be used to put the words “Lady Gaga” in a headline and generate some pageviews. As there is no need to worry about any of that until Sunday, none of those links are below. Instead, we’ve got an internet ton of more interesting Simpsons content. This week there are several awesome fan made items (including some cartoon sculptures that change depending on how you look at them), a bunch of people who agree with us, a brief history of “embiggen”, coffee mugs, and even Mitt Romney citing the show. As an odd coincidence, there are also three pieces of otherwise excellent usage that are just a single word off. Enjoy. [Note: You may have noticed that the URL for this site is now “www.deadhomersociety.com” instead of “www.deadhomersociety.wordpress.com”. For reasons that will be apparent in a few hours (in a post which should be up around 1pm Eastern), we’ve finally purchased our domain name. WordPress tells me that all the old links will redirect automatically, and any RSS or other feeds should continue to work as well. Please e-mail me if you experience any problems.] Just an Illusion # 26 – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week are these fantastic optical illusion cartoon sculptures. The Itchy & Scratchy one is just amazing. The Civilians and the Development of Mr. Burns, a post-electric play – Background on how that play came together: They did many different kinds of improvisation exercises, one of which was focused on recreating the Cape Feare episode of The Simpsons from memory (and as it turns out, our Associate Artist Matt Maher was incredibly good at this). Anne Washburn then took her notes and audio recordings and started writing what is now Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. The Act 1 recollection of the Simpsons episode is pulled almost verbatim from these exercises. Just a reminder, it opens in D.C. on May 28th and runs until July 1st. Skittlebrau – Yes: People add slices of fruit to beer all the time, so why not add fruit candy? Skittlebrau works best with lagers; IPAs and Ales are too hoppy to taste the rainbow. I don’t float the Skittles in the beer, that would be a waste of Skittles and beer. Instead I pop a few Skittles in my mouth and wash it down with a swig or two. It gives the beer a fruity flavor. It actually improves the taste if you are drinking a swill beer or a forty. Skittles and beer go hand in hand. Skittles are good. Beer is great. Good + Great = Amazing.…
Quote of the Day
“Tonight we’ll visit Springfield’s answer to the Benedictine monks, the Rappin’ Rabbis.” – Kent Brockman “Don’t eat pork, not even with a fork! Can’t touch this!” – The Rappin’ Rabbis “Marge, are we Jewish?” – Homer Simpson “No, Homer.” – Marge Simpson “Woo-hoo!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Excellent. Bribing those two judges has paid off, just as it did during the Miss Teen America pageant.” – C.M. Burns
Quote of the Day
“I have every right to be on that jury, even though I got there because I’m sleeping with the head of the festival.” – Homer Simpson “How many times have I heard Rex Reed say that?” – Jay Sherman Happy birthday Jon Lovitz!