“You know the rules, awards for excellence in entertainment are contraband, no Emmys, no Oscars, not even a Golden Globe.” – Prison Guard One of the more revealing ineptitudes of “Angry Dad: The Movie” is the way it fails to copy not one, but two different Simpsons episodes that did the exact same thing it did. (This is particularly stunning coming from a show that loves repeating jokes and unabashedly lives off of fan nostalgia.) Of course, both of those older episodes did things much quicker, and managed to actually mock the kidding-but-serious way awards shows take themselves and their participants. I am speaking of both the Emmys in “Black Widower” and the generic (but Emmy statue lookalike) Annual Cartoon Awards in “The Front” (which are awarded at the Springfield Civic Center the night before it’s closed for roach spraying). In “Black Widower”, Krusty comes out to present the award for “Best Supporting Performer in a Children’s Program”. Right there, the show is already making fun of the uselessness of the Daytime Emmys by creating a nonexistent, but not implausible, category for sidekicks. Taking the whole enterprise one level further into satiric silliness, Krusty reads a list of the enjoyably wacky nominees: Clockwise from top left: Droopy Drawers, Colonel Coward, Pepito (the Biggest Cat in the Whole Wide World), and Suck Up the Vacuum None of those four characters merit too much attention, but each gets his (its?) own little moment of personality. We see the improbably hot companion of Droopy Drawers reassuringly pat him on the hand. Colonel Coward freaks out from nerves just a little bit, and Pepito waves like the good natured mascot he is. Suck Up, who looks more than a little terrifying and can’t possibly be human, is too good to attend this complete sham. The entire thing takes only ten seconds before the main plot resumes. Despite not containing much more content than a vacuum cleaner in Spain, none of the plodding parodies in “Angry Dad: The Movie” move nearly as quickly. It’s not even close: “The Triplets of Belleville” takes about forty seconds. “Persepolis” is also forty seconds. “Toy Story” managed to be only thirty seconds (but certainly felt longer). “Wallace & Gromit” was sixty-five seconds (as in more than a minute!). “Angry Dad” was a comparatively tame twenty seconds. That’s five clips, totaling well over three minutes of screen time, in an episode that’s barely twenty minutes long. And that doesn’t even count Halle Berry’s part. For comparison’s sake, please note that the College Humor video of the McBain clips, which the killjoys at FOX legal have already taken down (shhh, reverse Spanish version), was only slightly longer, and it was from five separate episodes over three seasons. In “The Front” almost the exact same thing – awards show presentation with clips and a celebrity voice – is done in a small fraction of the time. Brooke Shields and Krusty come out so Krusty can read the terrible joke about his hair,…
Tag: Angry Dad: The Movie
Crazy Noises: Angry Dad: The Movie
“Yes, Mr. Sherman, everything stinks.” – Calmwood Mental Hospital Doctor In our ongoing mission to bring you only the shallowest and laziest analysis of Zombie Simpsons, we’re keeping up our Crazy Noises series for Season 22. Since a podcast is so 2004, and video would require a flag, a fern and some folding chairs from the garage, we’ve elected to use the technology that brought the word “emoticon” to the masses: the chatroom. Star Trek image macros are strictly forbidden, unless you have a really good reason why Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “jowl”). Among the shorter of the many long (long, long) skits during “Angry Dad: The Movie”, Zombie Simpsons had Homer stick a deck of playing cards (he happened to be carrying) down the back of his pants and shuffle them with his ass. The cards eventually emerge (unstained) fanned out from his waistline. Then they make a big show of him opening a bottle with his butt. That last concept is so inventive that I was only able to find three videos of people doing the same thing after one search on YouTube (plus a deer). But the butt-shuffling sent my mind instantly to the episode of The Critic where Marty’s in the talent show. Skip to the 4:25 mark here, and listen to Jay Sherman, in response to his son smoking a pipe with his belly button, say: “You know, my butt can deal blackjack, but this is Marty’s night.” The Critic was a show that never got the chance it deserved, and since it was funny as hell it makes sense that Jean and company would raid it for material, but inherently goofy things like this work much better when alluded to rather than spelled out. Charlie Sweatpants: Ready to get this over with? Mad Jon: Yep Charlie Sweatpants: I am not at a complete loss for words about this episode, but the only three that come to mind are "what", "the", and "fuck". Mad Jon: Yeah, once again it was quite the effort to watch. I turned it on right when I got home from work, and I still feel exhausted. Charlie Sweatpants: There were so many things that were a minute or longer when they could’ve been two seconds. The Ricky Gervais thing might not have even been worth two seconds. Mad Jon: I know the idea was to piggy back on the "Angry Dad" episode all those season ago, but I really felt it had to be thought of in the light of "The Front". A goal that was exponentially more difficult. I can’t figure out why Gervais is in everything. I really don’t find him funny. Also I am not British. Charlie Sweatpants: I don’t have anything against him, I’ve seen him be pretty funny, but this was a trainwreck. Mad Jon: It took me a few minutes of the tip scene to even figure…
Knowing Your Audience
“Thank god we’re back in Hollywood, where people treat each other right.” – Movie Guy No sooner do I make fun of Zombie Simpsons for its relentless Hollywood navel gazing than they spend an entire episode navel gazing in Hollywood. Starting with that interminable Itchy & Scratchy thing and running through awards ceremony cliches and a stunning number of glacially slow short films, this thing was one long exercise in entertainment industry self congratulations. (I’m sure these sorts of things will get people at L.A. area cocktail parties to praise them, but for the rest of us it’s a little less fun.) In between all that we were treated to some truly bizarre set pieces that had nothing to do with anything. Was Lisa hallucinating when the Pixar lamp attacked her? Was that the theme music for Jurassic Park and, if so, why? What ever happened to the chair guy? This episode was like watching one of Michael Bay’s more impatient films. Characters and storylines appear and disappear at random, most scenes have nothing to do with the ones before or after them, and all the pyrotechnics can’t conceal how poorly constructed the whole thing is. You’ve got twenty minutes to fill, you shouldn’t be worried that people are going to click to a different browser tab every ninety seconds. These are not YouTube videos or, at least, they’re not supposed to be. Anyway, the numbers are in and while they’re up from last week they’re still bad. Last night’s unintentional warning about the dangers of attention deficit disorder was left on by 6.35 million people while they clicked around Twitter and Facebook. That’s the second lowest number all season, though it’s going to need to get worse if Season 22 is going to take Season 20’s crown for least watched.
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: