“Comin’ through!” – Barney Gumble “Barney!” – Homer Simpson “Oh, yes, they call him the Streak!” – The Larry Davis Experience “Well, that young man’s bought himself about a decade of detention.” – Principal Dondelinger Happy birthday, Al Jean!
Tag: Al Jean
Quote of the Day
“Hey, kids, while Sideshow Mel mops up, let’s see the names of our Krusty Birthday Pals for today!” – Krusty the Klown “Alright, here comes my name! . . . Wow! Best eight bucks I ever spent.” – Bart Simpson Happy birthday, Al Jean!
Zombie Simpsons Gains YouTube Stardom
“Hey, wolfie! Put down that hors d’oeuvre. It’s time for the main course.” – Groundskeeper Willie No sooner do I decide to take a few days away from the internet than a popular YouTuber drops a 30 minute video that cites this blog and promptly racks up 900,000 views and counting. (My thanks to everyone who alerted me to it via Twitter and email.) The whole thing is worth watching: Excellent. For starters, my thanks to John Walsh/Super Eyepatch Wolf for the kind mentions and the link to Zombie Simpsons. More importantly, I heartily endorse this event or product’s analysis of how the show went to hell. It identifies Season 8 as a turning point, gives great examples of how layered jokes have been dropped in favor of lazy setup-punchline crap, and contains one of the best explanations of Homer vs. Jerkass Homer I’ve ever seen (22m28s). Most flattering of all, it led to this tweet from Al Jean himself: Aww, thanks.
Quote of the Day
“Bart, I’ve noticed your birthday presents are a poor crop at best. I hope this turns the tide.” – Martin Prince “Ooh, just gorgeous.” – Patty Bouvier “Now we can be twins!” – Martin Prince Happy birthday, Al Jean!
Quote of the Day
♫”And Bingo was his name-0!”♫ – Bart Simpson “Added extra clap. Not college material.” – Kindergarten Teacher Happy birthday Al Jean!
Last Night, On Twitter . . .
“I can’t remember the last time we were all together.” – Principal Skinner “Last year, on that stupid Dame Edna special.” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon Al Jean continues to ever so gingerly dip his toes into the never ending torrent of love, hate and general bullshit that is Twitter. Last night, he tweeted out this undated picture of some of the old staff: I wasn’t sure who everybody was, so I asked him, and he was kind enough to reply. From left to right it’s him, Mike Reiss, Wallace Wolodarsky, Jay Kogen, Jon Vitti, and Jeff Martin. He also said this: Aren’t you the guys that trash us every week? Peace and love, man. I’d quibble with “trash” and substitute “criticize”, but I don’t begrudge him his point of view on that. Al, we love you all the same, and thanks for the picture!
Quote of the Day
“Boy, someone’s really gobbling up the juice, sir.” – Mr. Smithers “Excellent, excellent. Perhaps this energy conservation fad is as dead as the dodo.” – C.M. Burns Happy Birthday Al Jean!
O’Brien, Jean, Reiss, Kogen and Martin
“Cartoons have writers?” – Bart Simpson “Enh, sort of.” – Lisa Simpson The 81 minute roundtable discussion Conan O’Brien hosted with Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen, and Jeff Martin is now live on O’Brien’s website. (I couldn’t get the embedding to work here on WordPress.) I must warn you: it is very addictive. I started it thinking I’d watch a few minutes and then come back to it tonight when I had more time. Nope. Watched it straight through my lunch. As a Simpsons fan, it’s a must-see. They talk about the origins of the show, joke about specific memories and episodes, and generally just crack each other up. It’s funny from start to finish, and at one point O’Brien puts this picture up: Clockwise from lower left: John Swartzwelder, David M. Stern, Mike Reiss, Conan O’Brien, Jeff Martin, Jon Vitti, Matt Groening, George Meyer, Al Jean (facing away from camera). Jean joked that this was a Potemkin village photo in that they brought in all the cutouts and cleaned the place up. There’s a lot of great stuff in here, but for now just let me note that at the 28:00 minute mark, Kogen says, “I remember when the show was at it’s, well, it’s still at it’s height.” Heh. Caught himself midsentence.
Quote of the Day
“You may not remember me. I’m Homer Simpson, I mooned for rebuttal.” – Homer Simpson “Yes, I remember.” – Marge Bouvier Happy birthday Al Jean!
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Today we have to talk about Krusty Brand Chew Goo Gum-like Substance. We knew it contained spider eggs, but the Hantavirus? Well, that really came out of left field. So, if any of you have experienced numbness or comas, send proof of purchase and five dollars to Antidote, P.O. Box 14.” – Krusty the Klown Happy birthday Al Jean!
Quote of the Day
“Who are you and why are you ruining my retirement party?” – Mimi the Food Critic “I’ll have you know I wandered off from the tour.” – Homer Simpson Happy Birthday Al Jean!
Much Better Than Average Al Jean Interview
As a nice contrast to last week’s depressingly formulaic Al Jean Season 13 promo interview, comes this much longer and much better one from Crave Online. Not only does the interviewer, Silas Lesnick, manage to not ask the “When are you quitting?” question that Jean usually has to duck, but he keeps the celebrity stuff to a minimum and even manages to tease out some actual information: CraveOnline: What’s the biggest difference between working on the show now and working on the 13th season? Al Jean: Between the 13th season and now, I would say that the biggest change is technological. The 13th season was the last one that was hand painted in the sense that there were actual cells. Subsequently, we switched to digital coloring. Back then I would watch half inch tapes of episodes and give notes. Now, obviously, I get everything through e-mail. And as a writer, I can’t begin to say how useful Google is. There used to be things we wouldn’t even bother trying to find out. Now you can find out in just a minute. I would say those are the biggest changes. At it’s core, it’s still all about trying to depict the truth of an American family. Given free reign to answer decent questions, Jean takes the opportunity to deviate from the company line a little bit: CraveOnline: I remember there was a joke on the very first Simpsons DVD where Matt Groening said that the releases would come out just fast enough for the format to become obsolete. Now we’re getting the first release on Blu-ray, which almost seems a payoff to that. Al Jean: We had a season 20 Blu-ray release, but they kind of rushed it and we didn’t do commentaries. But this is the first of the sort of full-commentary with all the extras season that’s on Blu-ray. There’s plenty more, and while I certainly don’t think Season 13 is anything more than a floating, unflushed turd, it’s worth reading. [Programming note: No Crazy Noises again this week.]
Quote of the Day
“Hey, what’s the problem here?” – Homer Simpson “We were fighting over which one of us loves you more.” – Lisa Simpson “You were? . . . Aww, well, go ahead.” – Homer Simpson “You love him more!” – Bart Simpson “No, you do!” – Lisa Simpson “No I don’t!” – Bart Simpson “Yes you do!” – Lisa Simpson “No I don’t!” – Bart Simpson Happy Birthday Al Jean!