In yet another example of life imitating The Simpsons, the German ambassador to the United Nations went on The Colbert Report last night and told a toilet seat joke so Teutonic it could’ve come from the well ordered Prussian mind of Rainier Wolfcastle himself. (Note: I tried to embed the video, but WordPress and Comedy Central don’t appear to get along.)
Tag: A Star Is Burns
Reading Digest: Children’s Art & Crossover Edition
“Coming up next, ‘The Flintstones Meet The Jetsons’.” – TV Announcer “Uh-oh, I smell another cheap cartoon crossover.” – Bart Simpson There is a larger than usual list of links this week, we’ve got everything from lawn mowers and Lithuanian comic books to Homer cakes and another rebuttal of the idea that pop culture necessarily ages badly. As for the title, well, there are two of them. First someone pines for a crossover, and then an art teacher talks about how the interests of kids have changed over time. Then someone gets a crossover, and we discover a way to infiltrate the very young. Plus there’s the usual assortment of excellent usage, lists, and people who agree with us. Enjoy. Malibu Stacy lives on. – Smooth Charlie’s Click of the Week comes from our friend and commenter lennyburnham as she takes a look at some modern examples of the timelessly horrible things Talking Malibu Stacy says. This is my favorite, referring to a chemistry set marketed to 9-year-old girls: If your box says “Wrap your hair SPA STYLE with the cool hair wrap”, maybe it’s time to stop marketing your product as educational. Indeed. A quotable cake. – A delectable looking Homer cake, complete with lots of quotes and photos. Homer Simpson’s Duff beer gives Lithuanian publisher a headache – I don’t know much about Lithuania, but this seems pretty dumb. Lithuania has rules against advertising alcohol in comics. Some genius, or shakedown artist take your pick, decided that even though Duff is fictional, because there are bootleg versions of it available in places like Mexico and Spain that depicting it requires a shutdown in publishing and a nearly $4,000 fine (via). INTERVIEW | Werner Herzog on 3D, “The Simpsons,” and Nicolas Cage – In an interview with Werner Herzog, someone pointed out to him that Zombie Simpsons sucks. He didn’t care: How did your voice acting on “The Simpsons” come about? Well, the crazy thing that I have to confess was that I did not know it was an animated show. I had never seen it. However, I knew what it looked like because I had seen it in print media. I thought it was a comic strip, like Charlie Brown or something. When they approached me, I said, “What do you mean by speaking a guest part? Do they speak?” And they couldn’t believe it. They thought I was pulling their legs. But I really didn’t know, and I asked them to send me a DVD with some samples of the animated show, so I would understand how cartoonish the voices were. Still today, I think they believe I’m joking. Well, that is pretty hard to believe. It’s “The Simpsons.” Yes, I was told it has existed for more than twenty years, and they have been moving and speaking for more than 20 years. But I didn’t know. I watched a DVD of two or three excerpts from the last few episodes. You should know, then, that the…
All Glory Is Fleeting
Image used under Creative Commons License from Flickr user cliff1066™. “Arggh, my groin!” – George C. Scott There’s new Zombie Simpsons in about an hour. It’s gonna be bad: Bart’s cartoon about an angry dad is turned into Angry Dad: The Movie and quickly becomes a critics’ favorite. When Russell Brand (guest-voicing as himself) presents the Golden Globe to Bart’s film, Homer usurps the podium and gives his own acceptance speech. The film’s winning streak continues with Homer taking credit at each ceremony, so when Angry Dad receives an Oscar nomination, Bart keeps it a secret. With the help of DJ Kwanzaa (guest voice Smoove), Homer and Marge arrive at the ceremony just as Halle Berry (guest-voicing as herself) presents the award. Bart’s fellow nominee, Nick Park (guest-voicing as himself), helps him realize that creating a film is a team effort, and Bart gives credit where credit is due. The Oscars are essentially a three-and-a-half-hour self promotion scheme. The whole point is to remind people that they believe in the essential decency of movie stars and the magic of talking pictures. The Simpsons made fun of that. Zombie Simpsons is helping with the marketing. Courtesy of Dave:
“The Sweetest Apu” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
“But first we have a special guest: Rainer Wolfcastle, star of the reprehensible McBain movies.” – Jay Sherman I have very little memory of this episode. Turns out that’s a good thing, because it’s bad. And since the commentators didn’t bother to comment on it much, I’m not going to either. I will say that, unlike most of the times they just completely ignore the episode, this one could have been very entertaining. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of Inside the Actors Studio. If I were, I would have found this fascinating. There’s a lot of information from Lipton about the beginning of the show, how it works, and even a story he’s never told before! You could footnote half a Wikipedia article from this commentary alone. So, if you like Inside the Actors Studio, I can wholeheartedly recommend this. If, like me, you’re pretty meh about Inside the Actors Studio, I would find something else to do with your twenty-two minutes. Seven guys on this one, including James Lipton (again) and Castellaneta. 0:30 – And we start off with Jean asking Lipton about how he got on Inside the Actors Studio. Lipton tries to demur, but everyone laughs and they go ahead with the story. 1:30 – Jean keeps the Lipton biography going with this probing question, “When did you realize you would be getting so many amazing actors to come into the show?” 2:30 – Lipton still droning on. If you’re really into Inside the Actors studio, this might be interesting to you. Remember, I said “If”. 3:00 – Lipton says that the two most popular episodes of his show were the one with the Simpsons people and Robin Williams. Jean thinks it was probably the only time the whole voice cast was interviewed together. 3:25 – Jean startles Castellaneta by asking him what it was like being on Lipton’s show. He wasn’t paying attention. 3:35 – Castellaneta liked being on. 4:15 – Someone else asks Lipton another question about his show. Now they’re talking about the various parodies. 5:20 – After Frink shows up with his giant mechanical spider, Jean helpfully points out that this is a “reference” to Wild Wild West. 5:45 – Still talking about Inside the Actors Studio, people ask all the time about why Julie Kavner disappeared in the middle. She had to catch a ferry. 6:45 – More celebrity stories about Inside the Actors Studio. 7:10 – Jean breaks in briefly to say that the long joke where Homer walks backwards was Swartzwelder’s idea. Then back to Lipton. 8:10 – Lipton still talking. 8:50 – Lipton’s at least talking about The Simpsons instead. 9:00 – Jean’s telling a story about Taxi. 10:00 – Lipton’s praising the show some more. 10:20 – Jean says that the sign humor, basically written stuff in the background, is the thing that takes the most time compared to the amount of time on screen. That must be why things like this happen. 10:55 – It impresses…
Reading Digest: Favre Instead of Banksy Edition
“And the Oscar goes to . . .” – Rainier Wolfcastle “I’ve got to win this one, I bribed everyone in Hollywood.” – C.M. Burns “. . . George C. Scott in ‘Man Getting Hit by Football’.” – Rainier Wolfcastle As you can tell, we’ve been running behind this week. It was one of those weeks where lots of little things seem to be conspiring against you, but it’s over now. On the plus side, there is no new Zombie Simpsons for three weeks! Woo-hoo! The Banksy opening was all over the internet, and having said my piece about that already I’ve all but ignored it here. In place of that, we have two links to Brett Favre things. We also got two excellent links from readers, some YouTube, lots of love for Treehouse of Horror, and a Simpsons crossword. Enjoy. I Fought the Lawyers and the Lawyers won – This is Smooth Charlie’s Click of the Week, a drawing of Brett Favre as Grampa Simpson that was going to be used for a cartoon before ESPN pulled the plug. It sounds like it would’ve been funny. Author of the Month – Edgar A. Poe – Audio YouTube of “The Raven” from the first Treehouse of Horror. "Best. Episode. Ever!" Toonzone Talks "The Simpsons" – Reader Eric, who sent in the link for the Banksy post, also sent in this excellent list of people’s favorite Simpsons episodes. It will not shock you to see that everything is from Season 7 or earlier. Things get even funnier in the comments thread. One of the staff writes: There’s a definite preference for the first seven seasons here (22 Short Films About Springfield is the latest episode, and four are from Season 6 alone). That shouldn’t be interpreted as a knock on later seasons, however. That comment is then completely ignored as people keep talking about their favorite episodes and nothing past Season 9 comes up. Thanks Eric! Treehouses Of Horror – Some love for the Treehouse of Horror specials, including this lovely bit at the end: It’s hard for anything to break into my long-established Halloween special canon of It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, and Disney’s Halloween Treat, those specials that I watch every Halloween, that help me savor this season and that have in fact become a part of this season. But the Treehouses of Horror have done it, at least the first 8 (Treehouse of Horror I-VIII) have anyway. And I’m so glad they did. Yeah, they’re not so good anymore, but that doesn’t make the old ones any less great. Squirrel nests in Homer Simpson slippers – It looks quite content in there. Favre does his best Hans Moleman – Every once and a while, life gives you a little moment: Dental Plan Lisa Needs Therapy – Reader Mike sends in this YouTube video he made for a homework assignment: The 20/20 return at the end really makes it. Thanks Mike! Itemized: African…
Crazy Noises: Loan-a-Lisa
Original concept art for Itchy & Scratchy “Up” parody in “Loan-a-Lisa”. The Itchy & Scratchy bit at the beginning of “Loan-a-Lisa” was, to put it mildly, creatively bankrupt. It starts by spending forty-five seconds re-enacting “Up” with nary a joke in sight; that would be bad enough, but Zombie Simpsons then makes things even worse. Instead of ending with some kind of “Up” inspired violence (a balloon house falling on them, a giant blimp attack, a pack of remotely controlled dogs tearing them to pieces) it ends by repeating not one, not two, but three (3) scenes from previous Itchy & Scratchy episodes. In other words, they faithfully recreated “Up” until they could no longer directly copy the source material, then they copied something else. They couldn’t be bothered to come up with their own ideas, even derivative ones. I know I said this last week, but it really does seem like they think developing new ideas is beneath them. Mad Jon: You guys ready? Charlie Sweatpants: Sure am, let’s get this over with so I can never think about this episode again. Dave: Word. Mad Jon: This was pretty bad. How many inheritances does Grandpa have to give out? Charlie Sweatpants: As many as need be between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable. Dave: Two so far and it was only funny the first time. Mad Jon: It pains me that we are now to the point they don’t even try to avoid re-doing premises. Dave: No they sort of revel in it. Faded glory and all that. Charlie Sweatpants: Pretty much. That joke way back in Season 11 where Comic Book Guy comes on and says they did this already is looking better and better in hindsight. Now we don’t even get that. Dave: They must think we’re stupid Mad Jon: It’s probably more that they don’t care what we think or if we are stupid. Dave: Well, that too. Charlie Sweatpants: While we’re on the opening though, there are two excellent examples of painful joke stretching here. The small one is Bart mentioning how that won’t pay his vig, and then, because that line was so hard to come up with and didn’t last long enough, they cut to a shot of Jimbo in a conveniently placed window. The second and much larger one was the whole deck of cards thing. That Grampa’s hands shake so bad he can’t play cards is kinda funny, but then they ruin it by having Marge extend the gag for another ten seconds of tortuous screen time. Mad Jon: I actually was physically embarrassed when that kept going. That’s pretty rare for me with Zombie episodes, I usually just boil in anger. Dave: You have a range of emotions as a human being. Mad Jon: So I’ve been told. Charlie Sweatpants: My "sympathy embarrassment" feelings for this show are pretty well numbed at this point. Dave: Perhaps you will experience love next. But it sure as…
Crazy Noises: Chief of Hearts
“At last, an excuse to wear makeup!” – Chief Wiggum In our continuing mission to bring you only the finest in low class, low brow, and low tech internet Simpsons commentary we’re bringing back our “Crazy Noises” series and applying it to Season 21. Because doing a podcast smacks of effort we’re still using this “chatroom” thing that all the middle schoolers and undercover cops seem to think is so cool. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (though, for comedy purposes, “cumly” has been left alone). Zombie Simpsons likes to graft hackneyed plot ideas and story structures onto its one dimensional characters. Unfortunately, when groping blindly for concepts that have only been done a dozen or so times before, they don’t consider what kind of baggage comes along with them. Cheap comedy plots often have pointless “danger” sequences at the end that give the characters a modicum of cover to come to terms with whatever has been driving the plot forward. (If you’re familiar with the lesser works of Adam Sandler you know exactly what I’m talking about.) Take “Chief of Hearts”, which spends the last 20% or so of its runtime forcing Homer and Wiggum to re-bond because of gangsters. Why were gangsters hanging out in the woods? Why were Wiggum and Homer there in the first place? If they’re already in the woods why do they have to go for a drive? It’s best if you don’t ask those kinds of questions since there are no answers that don’t include the phrase “it’s because . . .”. Anyway, we had a good time last night picking at some of the more obvious problems with this episode. The complete lack of jokes or satire were only the beginning. Mad Jon: Anywho, you guys ready? Dave: I’m a couple beers in. Let’s rock Charlie Sweatpants: Initial thoughts? Mad Jon: Mr. Burns I believe you asked for an opening tirade. Charlie Sweatpants: Yes I did Kent. Charlie Sweatpants: The fundamental problem with this episode is that it’s using a concept of romantic comedy that was tired in about 1985, and yet they believe that by grafting it onto Chief Wiggum it will be funny. Mad Jon: I especially hate episodes that humanize characters known for only one thing. Charlie Sweatpants: I would dispute your use of the word "humanize". Mad Jon: Next there will be an episode about how lonely Disco Stu is or something. Dave: Wiggum as an emotional trainwreck was special. Charlie Sweatpants: Wiggum is eminently human, he’s massively corrupt and completely oblivious to the harm he causes other people. Mad Jon: But seriously, Wiggum is a cop. A terrible, terrible cop. And that is why we love him. The only family or emotional stuff he should be responsible for is the occasional post Ralph comment-comment. Moe tends bar, Krabappel teaches, Lovejoy preaches, and that’s that. Dave: Completely agree. The insecurities he expressed in this episode were out of hand and not funny, which goes without…
Quote of the Day
“My name is Barney and I’m an alcoholic.” – Barney Gumble “Mr. Gumble, this is a Girl Scout meeting.” – Lisa Simpson “Is it? Or is it that you girls can’t admit you have a problem?” – Barney Gumble
Quote of the Day
“Oh, I thought they were playing ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ tonight.” – Dr. Julius Hibbert
Friday Link Dump – Skepticism Edition
“I’m telling you people, the Earth revolves around the Sun!” – Principal Skinner “Burn him!” – Abe “Grandpa” Simpson There’s a nice menagerie this week. We’ve got the usual random internet crap, a spectacular usage fail, me hating on astrology, Simpsonized skeptics, and an oblique reference to the Miss Universe pageant. 10 Best Father/Son Wisdom Exchanges from TV and Movies – Bart and Homer make the list for Homer’s awesome “You’re not talking about killing anyone, are you?” speech. Miss Kosovo vs Marge Simpson – You be the judge. – Miss Kosovo (it’s a country now!) lost the Miss Universe pageant to Miss Venezuela last Sunday. In this photo she has a bit of a “up” hair-do. Enh. If you ask me, they’re all winners. No Grand Slam, but a Triple Crown, maybe – Reviewing the new movie “Bandslam”, Daniel Carey gets a silver star for this almost excellent usage: THERE’S a great scene in ‘The Simpsons’ where Ralph Wiggum, interviewed by Krusty the Klown on live television, reveals that he loves Lisa Simpson and plans to marry her. A horrified Lisa screams ‘No!’ and admits that she only gave him a Valentine’s Day card because nobody else would. Afterwards, Lisa’s brother Bart plays her back the tape of the show in slow motion, and reveals that ‘you can actually pinpoint the exact second where his heart rips in two!’ He muffs the quote from Bart just a bit (“you can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half!”), but it’s still pretty good. OFFBEAT: Readers respond to Rick Springfield, along with Paul Anka question – I didn’t know Paul Anka wrote Johnny Carson’s tonight show theme. Simpsons Top Trumps: Skeptics Edition – Top Trumps is a card game. This is a mockup set with prominent skeptics drawn Simpsons style. I know who about half of these people are, but I’m still damn impressed. TV’s Homer Simpson to lead Cincinnati dance – This is pretty much what the headline says: Homer Simpson — or someone dressed like the patriarch of TV’s popular cartoon family — will be out in front of what they call the World’s Largest Chicken Dance, part of the city’s annual Oktoberfest celebration on Sept. 20. The Fox Network sought the invitation to promote the 20th anniversary of ”The Simpsons.” Doesn’t this family know any songs that aren’t commercials? Astro-Homer – It’s an astrological breakdown of the Simpson family. Fun astrology fact: in addition to being complete hokum in general, astrology can’t even get its own signs correct. The calendar dates used to determine what “sign” you are don’t actually correspond with the constellations because of a silly little thing called precession. 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Johnny Unitas – Now here’s something Morgan Spurlock should look into. A commenter attributes Grandpa’s line about setting your watch to his haircut to Hank Hill and is immediately corrected by three different people. Then somebody busts out Unitas’ turn as a spokesman for the Lady Krusty…
And It’s Not Even Close
Apparently Jerry Seinfeld is coming to Ottawa. This prompted a columnist in The Ottawa Citizen to praise Seinfeld and his show for being second only to Shakespeare in terms of adding “catchphrases” to the language. That’s all well and good, but this paragraph cannot go unremarked upon: Most catchphrases are pure confection and essentially hollow: think of the greatest hits of Seinfeld’s closest competitor in numbers, The Simpsons: “D’oh!” or “don’t have a cow” or “eat my shorts” are memorable, but they don’t really say anything that we didn’t already know how to say ourselves, though perhaps not so memorably. Even Bart Simpson’s “meh,” which has had a recent buzz, really only means “whatever.” Seinfeld’s catchphrases crystallized things that we all had noticed and felt, but not effectively verbalized. In the immortal words of C. Montgomery Burns, I disagree. The quotability of The Simpsons is second to none, and it, of course, goes far beyond Homer and Bart (to say nothing of four whiney New Yorkers). We can start with “cromulent” and “embiggen”, which aren’t so much catchphrases as they are words with widely understood meanings. “Smell you later” is decent way to say goodbye. And, of course, in addition to “D’oh” Homer gave us the distinct inflections of “Woo hoo!” and “Mmmm donuts/beer/whatever”. As we broaden our horizon to the secondary characters it’s an embarrassment of riches. Flanders doesn’t so much have a catchphrase as he has a catch modification, “doodily”, “doakely”, “diddily” and variations thereof can be used or added to just about anything. I’m a big fan of Dr. Nick’s “Hi everybody!” as a way to greet a bunch of people. Then there’s Nelson’s “Ha ha” which works in any situation. Ask a lawyer or aspiring lawyer about Lionel Hutz (“law taking guy” seems to be a particular favorite). And if you want to talk about something that has penetrated pretty much every part of modern culture, it’s Comic Book Guy’s “Worst/Best. [noun]. Ever.” Then there’s Chief Wiggum (wahhh), Apu (Thank you, come again), Krusty (Hey hey kids!), Troy McClure (You might remember me from such films as . . .) and, of course, Mr. Burns. He turned a single word into a declarative sentence (Excellent) that lets everyone know exactly what you’re talking about. Then there’s the end of “Bart Gets Famous”, a self mocking spoof of the very concept of catchphrases. Seinfeld adding more to the language than The Simpsons? Release the hounds.
FOX Plans Self Fellatio for January
“Listen Senor Spielbergo, I want you to do for me what Spielberg did for Oskar Schindler.” – C.M. Burns “Uh, Schindler es bueno, senor Burns es el diablo.” – Senor Spielbergo “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, dammit! Now go out there and win me that festival!” – C.M. Burns Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame (and Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? mild notoriety), will be producing and directing a FOX special called “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice”. Assuming the title is a joke on just how ridiculous it is to celebrate such a meaningless milestone, this could be almost anything: The documentary special, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the animated program, will air Thursday, Jan. 14 on Fox. According to FX, the documentary will focus on the “cultural phenomenon of The Simpsons.” January 14th, by the way, is the date the series “officially” started with the airing of “Bart the Genius” in 1990. I’ll assume the network has its own programming reasons for choosing that date instead of December 17th, which is the date that “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” first aired. The question on my mind is how it’s going to handle the widely acknowledged quality gap between real Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons. If it’s pure “aren’t we great and funny and look how long we’ve been great and funny” propaganda there probably won’t be much in the way of jokes or references to the glaring inadequacy of the later seasons. But when people talk about the Simpsons and quote the Simpsons (the “cultural phenomenon” aspect) it’s almost exclusively something from the before time, the long long ago (Spiderpig notwithstanding). In short, can you fellate the show without overtly ignoring all of its crappiness? We’ll find out in six months.
Quote of the Day
“Barney’s movie had heart, but ‘Football in the Groin’ had a football in the groin.” – Homer Simpson’s Brain