“Hey, Bart dude! Whoa, you look freaked.” – Otto“Hey, Otto man, I got a big test that I am not ready for! Could you please crash the bus or something?” – Bart Simpson“Oh, sorry, little buddy, can’t do it on purpose. But, hey, maybe you’ll get lucky!” – Otto
Tag: Bart Gets an F
Quote of the Day
“Bart Simpson, is your book report on Treasure Island ready?” – Mrs. Krabappel “Is it ready? Ha! What a question! Fellow students, prepare to be dazzled! . . . Well, as Mrs. Krabappel already mentioned, the name of the book that I read was Treasure Island. It’s about these pirates . . . Pirates with patches over their eyes . . . and shiny gold teeth . . . and green birds on their shoulders. Did I mention this book was written by a guy named Robert Louis Stevenson? And published by the good people at McGraw Hill. So, in conclusion, on the Simpson Scale of one to ten, ten being the highest. one being the lowest, and five being average, I give this book . . . a nine.” – Bart Simpson
Quote of the Day
“As a natural enemy, I don’t know why I should care, but the information pertaining to America’s colonial period that you’ve just received is erroneous.” – Martin Prince “So you’re saying . . . ” – Bart Simpson “A blindfolded chimp with a pencil in his teeth has a better chance of passing this test than you do.” – Martin Prince “Thanks for the pep talk.” – Bart Simpson Happy Birthday Russi Taylor!
Quote of the Day
“I think you may be on the mend. Is there anything else I can get you?” – Marge Simpson “Hmm, perhaps the TV?” – Bart Simpson “Of course. Homer!” – Marge Simpson “What?” – Homer Simpson “Bring the television up! Bart’s got his vision back!” – Marge Simpson “D’oh! Wish I had amoria phlebitis.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Alright, let’s have a look see at your study area.” – Martin Prince “Study area?” – Bart Simpson “Yes, your sanctuary from the hurly-burly of modern life.” – Martin Prince “Well, there’s a desk under that junk over there.” – Bart Simpson “Oh, no, no, no, no, this won’t do at all. We’re going to have to clean up this room. And we’ll clearly need a few ferns in here. No study area is complete without adequate plant life.” – Martin Prince
Quote of the Day
“I’ve been failing a lot of tests recently.” – Bart Simpson “Yuh-huh.” – Otto “And now they’re talking about holding me back in the fourth grade if I don’t shape up.” – Bart Simpson “That’s it? Hey, relax, man. It could end up being the best thing that ever happened to you. I got held back in the fourth grade myself, twice! And look at me, man: now I drive the school bus!” – Otto
Quote of the Day
“It’s so unfair! Just because he’s different…” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Oh, the little tiger tries so hard. Why does he keep failing?” – Marge Simpson “Just a little dim, I guess.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Bart! You haven’t been paying attention to a word I said, have you?” – Mrs. Krabappel “Yes, ma’am.” – Bart Simpson “Well then, what did I say?” – Mrs. Krabappel “Uh . . . straighten up and fly right?” – Bart Simpson “That was a lucky guess!” – Mrs. Krabappel
Quote of the Day
“Otto, you know I respect you. I mean, You always let us throw stuff at cars and try to tip the bus on sharp turns.” – Bart Simpson “Damn thing never goes over, does it?” – Otto
Quote of the Day
“Who cares about some test? Life’s too short for tests!” – Martin Prince “Hey, I thought we had a deal!” – Bart Simpson “The Martin Prince you made a deal with no longer exists! Come on, fellows, to the arcade!” – Martin Prince Happy birthday Russi Taylor!
Quote of the Day
“Marge, could you get me another beer, please?” – Homer Simpson “In a second, Homer, Lisa has some good news.” – Marge Simpson “He doesn’t care, Mom.” – Lisa Simpson “Sure I do, I just want to have a beer while I’m caring.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Who would’ve thought that pushing a boy into the girls’ lavatory could be such a thrill? The screams, the humiliation, the fact that it wasn’t me! I’ve never felt so alive!” – Martin Prince
Quote of the Day
Image yoinked from Wikipedia. “Hey, look, everybody, John Hancock is writing his name in the snow!” – Congressional Delegate
Quote of the Day
Image shamelessly yoinked from here. “I think what we have on our hands here is a classic case of what laymen refer to as ‘fear of failure’. As a result, Bart is an underachiever, and yet he seems to be, how should I put this? Proud of it?” – Dr. J. Loren Pryor Happy Simpsons Day, everybody!
Compare & Contrast: Martin Prince
“You’re killing me, fish. Never have I seen a greater or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me! I do not care who kills who. To catch a fish, to kill a bull, to make love to a woman, to live!” – Martin Prince There was a great deal of nostalgia laden fan service in the (presumably) non-ironically titled “Replaceable You”, which means that there are a great deal of things that could be compared and contrasted. The nerds made an utterly pointless appearance, Homer got an assistant, and Mrs. Glick was apparently killed off while Dr. Nick came back to life and spoke. (Was that the first time he’s spoken since the movie?) There was also a rivalry between Bart and Lisa for the science fair, which was stupid, shallow and a blatant act of repetition. But something simpler gets at the deeper problems with Zombie Simpsons, and that something is good old Martin Prince. Like many of the less flashy supporting characters in Zombie Simpsons, it’s hard to pin down exactly when the light went out of Martin’s eyes. The family and more major characters like Flanders and Burns get enough screen time that you can follow their devolution more or less as it happened. Others, like Patty, Selma, and Miss Hoover, have basically fallen off the show, so when they do make their infrequent appearances it’s a lot more jarring. Such is the case with Martin. Like so many others, Martin has become more of a prop than a character. Instead of acting like anything resembling a ten-year-old, even a very smart one, Martin spends most of his time sitting in the background or delivering the occasional semi-clever one liner that would be more at home on something like The Big Bang Theory. That’s where you get setup-beat-punchline sitcom garbage like this: Martin: Good shot. Bart: Not really. I was trying to bounce it off your left testy. Martin: Testis, my friend. Bart: Ugh. That’s not how people talk, that’s how sitcom writers make people talk. It’s basically a late night monologue that happens to be between two people. (And that’s ignoring the way Martin makes his entrance by conveniently hanging from a tree outside of the Simpsons’ kitchen window. It’s the standard Zombie Simpsons need to have characters appear precisely when needed with no regard to whether or not they’d actually be there. By comparison, in “Bart Gets an F”, they strike up their conversation after Martin overhears the twins messing with Bart on the school bus.) Since Martin is now very less than human, that kind of cheap, formulaic cornball is the only way they can think to make him even resemble funny. Zombie Simpsons can’t generate any genuine humor from him without that crutch, so once they run out of things for him and Bart to parrot at one another, he basically goes silent. That is not an exaggeration. Martin is in the episode all the way to the dance…
The Lesson Is: Never Try
“This is as good as I can do, and I still failed!” – Bart Simpson When it comes to Zombie Simpsons I’m firmly in the camp of “It Never Gets Better”, and last night’s exercise in repetition and tedium is a perfect example of why. They managed to not spin themselves into blood soaked absurdity like last week, there weren’t any pointless celebrity cameos, and there was even kind of a story. But while this is the best they can do, it’s still flat, dull and boring. Just consider the school auction at the beginning. In that scene alone we get a healthy dose of Jerkass Homer, there are characters present who have no business being there, Skinner acts dumber than anyone could ever possibly be, and several voices (notably Captain McAllister, Krabappel, and Skinner) don’t sound anything like themselves. On top of all that, “school fundraiser” is a scene the show has done numerous times already. So even if the scene didn’t have all those problems, it’s still something that was done better twenty years ago. The rest of the episode suffers from the same problems. Bart gets someone fired? Been done, and much more plausibly. School takeover? Ditto. Bart gets interested in American history? Please. And in each instance it made better sense, was less forced, and had more jokes the first time around. In Season 5, Skinner lost his job because Bart brought a dog to the school. In Season 23, Chalmers lost his job because he took five reprobates camping to find the lost glasses of a dead president and didn’t bother to get permission slips despite the fact that he’s the fucking superintendent. And nevermind that Nelson, who had previously been super Teddy Roosevelt enthused (which has its own set of problems), sits there while it happens and literally doesn’t say a word. Even when Zombie Simpsons keeps itself kind of grounded it has to conjure up nonsense and paper over glaring plot holes to move along. That there are a couple more chuckle worthy lines than usual (“Have you ever seen a horse your father wasn’t betting on?” is pretty good) isn’t enough to rescue it, or even come close. Anyway, the numbers are in and they are worse than I could’ve hoped. Last night’s remedial class was attended by a paltry 6.12 million viewers. As expected, the lack of a football lead in crashed the rating and restored Family Guy to its usual place as the most watched animated show. But it gets better. That number is the lowest fall rating for a new episode ever. (The fall numbers are always higher than the winter/spring numbers.) So while Zombie Simpsons usually starts out well above its season average from the previous year, this year it’s average viewership is already below that of last year. Granted, that’s an average of just two numbers, but right now they’re at 7.02 million per episode, which is well below last year’s average of 7.10 million, which was…
Quote of the Day
Spirit of St. Louis and Acapulco yoinked from Wikipedia; giant rat used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user normanack. “Look at him, I bet he didn’t study again.” – Sherri “And now he’s going to try to kiss up and get answers from us.” – Terri “He’s pathetic.” – Sherri “Good morning, girls.” – Bart Simpson “Good morning, Bart.” – Sherri & Terri “Say, who’s up for a little cram session? I’ll go first. What was the name of the Pilgrims’ boat?” – Bart Simpson “The Spirit of St. Louis.” – Terri “And where’d they land?” – Bart Simpson “Sunny Acapulco.” – Sherri “And why’d they leave England?” – Bart Simpson “Giant rats.” – Terri “Cool, history’s coming alive.” – Bart Simpson Happy birthday Russi Taylor!
Think of the (Future) Children!
“You just demonstrated applied knowledge; and due to the difficulty and relative obscurity of the reference, you deserve an extra point on your exam.” – Mrs. Krabappel A couple of weeks ago, Matt Zoller Seitz wrote an article for Salon about the longevity of pop culture in general and The Simpsons in particular. He was watching “Krusty Gets Kancelled” with his kids (aged 7 and 13), and he was concerned that they weren’t getting all the jokes. They were laughing, but he worried that they weren’t enjoying it on as many levels as he was. Being a well practiced columnist, he turned his parental fretting into written words and the result was “Will future generations understand "The Simpsons"?”. The article had the good sense to differentiate between The Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons, but it had enough internal contradictions to let the reader know that the question mark in the headline was no accident. For example, first came this: If the first half of "The Simpsons’" endless run has held up, it’s because of the characters and stories, the timing of certain lines and sight gags, and the phenomenal voice work. (When my daughter was an infant, Krusty’s voice used to make her laugh hysterically.) Which is followed only a few paragraphs later by this: Some of the most buzz-worthy TV comedies of the last 25 years have proved as sturdy as tissue paper. Even the great ones from the ’90s ("The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld") are starting to seem as era-specific as high-top fades and Koosh balls. Well, which is it? Has the show “held up”, or should we consign it to that box in the garage with the Koosh balls? Seitz doesn’t quite offer an answer, but the rest of the internet jumped on it hard enough that he wrote a follow up piece based on all the reactions, “Should comedy worry about its shelf life?”. The subtitle is “A Salon piece about how pop culture references date sitcoms sparks rebuttals — and "Simpsons" celebrations”. Mr. Seitz? There’s an unruly mob to see you. Without delving into all the specifics (the second article is well worth reading in its entirety if for no other reason than to see the wonderful number of ways people love The Simpsons), Seitz comes closest to answering his question from the previous article here: But hopefully there’s something about the work that transcends the time in which it was created, otherwise it’s ephemeral, disposable. I probably singled out "The Simpsons" because it’s considered a pantheon series, a great and presumably lasting work. And during the first half of its run, it did have certain timeless qualities. The pop culture references were dense and sometimes deep, but there also frequent references to mythology, ancient history, biblical scripture, opera, Broadway musicals, painting and literature: Shakespeare, Vincent van Gogh, Gilbert and Sullivan, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, you name it. And the best episodes weren’t just a bunch of riffs strung together. There was a coherent, often scathingly…
Reading Digest: Block Quote Filler Edition (with Small Update)
I don’t know if it’s just a natural slowdown at the end of the year or what, but I just didn’t come across the usual volume of Simpsons related stuff this week. Fortunately, I quoted liberally from what I did find and gave this the appearance of substance rather than the substance of substance. Uh oh, maybe Zombie Simpsons is rubbing off on me. Anyway, there is some neat stuff this week, including stories about Groening, Simon, and some humorously erotic fan art. Enjoy. [Note: After I decided to use this image for the header I checked to see if I’d used it before. Turns out I used almost the exact same scene for the very short Reading Digest from the same time last year. Either I’m seasonally slacking off alone, or the rest of the internet is doing it with me.] Simpsons Producer Admits Show is Stale! – A special late addition via rubbercat.net/simpsons Twitter feed is now Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week. Simpsons creator to make desi comic – Groening took a trip to India and a comic book may be the result. DOUG ELFMAN: Players critique Reid plan for poker – Sam Simon is something of a poker player, and he doesn’t like the cronyism behind the latest push to legalize on-line gambling. Humor Chic Exclusive – Anna Wintour and Homer Simpson, Erotic Tips – More fan made art from Humor Chic, this time with Homer in various tastefully done poses. Hey, you want the day off from school? Think again! – We’ve got two from In 10 Words this week . . . Tron: Legacy…In 10 Words – . . . and as usual the alternate image text is Simpsons heavy. I Love the Simpsons – I usually roll my eyes when I read things about the show written by serious Christians. It’s almost always the same pabulum about how Flanders is a good role model and how the show is secretly really Christian because they go to church. This, on the other hand, has a much less blinkered view of the show, doesn’t view all criticism as blasphemy, and keeps a sense of humor. And, naturally, I agree with this: I am speaking here of the early seasons of the show, lately it has sadly lapsed into a model more centered on garnering laughs than speaking to the important issues of the day. Random Musings: THE VAMPIRE DIARIES Marathon, THE SIMPSONS & DEXTER’s Not-So-Killer Ending – I could do without the pointless self flagellation at the beginning, but this is pretty solid: As much as we hate to further perpetuate the “blogger” stereotype, last night’s episode of THE SIMPSONS leaves us with choice but to channel our own inner comic book guy as we type the words, “Worst. Episode. Ever.” Okay, not really. But as someone who has watched every single episode of the iconic animated series, not to mention, fully appreciates that at 22 seasons and counting, original ideas may be more than…