“I’m still trying to figure out what’s bothering Lisa. I don’t know, Bart’s such a handful, and Maggie needs attention, but all the while, our little Lisa’s becoming a young woman.” – Marge Simpson “Oh, so that’s it. This is some kind of underwear thing.” – Homer Simpson Beneath the unvarnished cruise line agitprop, the hastily dropped money saving plot, and that bizarre encounter with penguins in Ant-fucking-arctica lies what may be the most half-assed aspect of “A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again”, its blisteringly simplistic and incomplete handling of Bart’s serious melancholy. Though the episode…
Tag: A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again
Crazy Noises: A Totally Fun That Thing Bart Will Never Do Again
“Well, I never thought it would come to this, but I guess we’ll have to sell Grandma’s Civil War doll.” – Marge Simpson “Oh, Mom, are you sure you want to sell a family heirloom to pay the gas bill? I mean, what would your Grandma say?” – Lisa Simpson “I’m sure she’d be proud that her descendant’s had piping hot tap water and plenty of warm, dry underwear.” – Marge Simpson As part of our tireless efforts to demonstrate the many ways Zombie Simpsons fails to entertain, Season 23 will be subjected to the kind of rigorous examination that…
“Thanks, Zombie Simpsons!” – The Cruise Industry
“Don’t forget to check out the galley. That’s real shag carpeting!” – Captain McAllister The title of yesterday’s episode, “A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again”, is a reference to a famous 1996 David Foster Wallace article for Harper’s, in which he embarked on a giant luxury liner to experience the narrow, selfish, and vapid thinking that underlies the modern cruise industry (as well as the bland and mostly uninteresting people who think of it as the height of fun). It’s an enjoyably cruel piece of writing (it was later used as the headline piece to a…
Sunday Post: A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again
Image bloodied by Dave. It’s that time again: In this mouth-full of a title-d episode, when Bart sees a commercial for the ultimate cruise, he begs his parents for a family vacation. Low on cash, the only way they can go is if each family member sells one valuable. Once they’re away, Bart is determined to make the vacation last forever. So he comes up with a plan to make sure they never have to return home. I anticipate a well plotted piece of non-claptrap that never makes me want to wretch.