Tag: Bart Gets Hit By a Car

Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user Rose Robinson. “I’m sorry, but my mother always said if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.” – Marge Simpson “Will that hold up in court?” – Homer Simpson “No, I’ve tried it before.” – Lionel Hutz On previous occasions I have described IGN’s Simpsons reviews as being written in a style known as “corporate fanboy”.  It has the same willful blindness to mediocrity that characterizes fanboy screeds, but there’s an air of discomfort about it that its formality cannot fully conceal.  Case in point, this week’s review of the curling episode.  It is five paragraphs long, the first three of them detail events that occur before the eight minute mark (or what would’ve been the first commercial break if the show still only had three).  The fourth paragraph, a mere 20% of the “review”, breezes through the bulk of the episode (the multiple curling sequences, several of the montages, the Agnes/Skinner melodrama, and the self serving Bob Costas cameo).  The fifth paragraph covers Lisa’s skeletal subplot and pronounces everything awesome. See what they did there?  Rather than try to praise the horrifyingly thin final 2/3 of the episode they simply skipped it.  A real fanboy would’ve taken the worst parts and lauded them unconditionally (e.g. the comment from Maddox at Simpsons Channel, “I really loved this episode and all of the jokes in it were great!”).  IGN can’t quite bring itself to that level and simply ignores what it doesn’t like hoping that no one will notice.  As always I’ve edited the synergy out of the review.   February 15, 2010 – Often with animation Zombie Simpsons, due to the lengthy production process, it’s tough to be topical. Because of that, The Simpsons Zombie Simpsons usually steers clear of of-the-moment humor references. When a topical reference does get through, it will often bomb, or at the very least date when production on the episode likely took place display how out of touch the show has become. If When they do get topical, they do so in broad, clumsy strokes, like in Sunday night’s "Boy Meets Curl." It was an episode about the Winter Olympics, just days after the opening ceremonies in Vancouver. It was a safe bet the scheduled start date of this major sporting event would not change, and The Simpsons took advantage Zombie Simpsons proved that while it can’t make good television it can read a calendar. Not that this episode needed to air during the actual Olympics, but it did help add a bit of knowing familiarity to the comedic references of the Canadian-based event desperation to be relevant again. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The episode began with Marge and Homer separately preparing for a night on the town, though no explanation is offered for why Homer is at the plant. Instead of making it on time, Homer got stuck at work for some reason. This opening act moved fast and had…