“Father McGrath? I thought you were dead!” – Soap Opera Babe“I was!” – Father McGrath
Tag: Bart’s Dog Gets an F
Makeup Quote of the Day
“This one’s mine.” – Marge Simpson “Keep On Truckin’? What does that mean?” – Lisa Simpson “I didn’t know then and I don’t know now.” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“You son of a bitch! . . . Good show!” – Emily Winthrop Happy birthday, Tracey Ullman!
Quote of the Day
“Jack, I think the baby might be yours.” – Soap Actress “Oh, I’m sure it is, dollface. But I’d like to see you prove it.” – Jack “You treat me like garbage.” – Soap Actress “That’s because that’s the way you love it, baby!” – Jack “Gee, is it always this good?” – Lisa Simpson “Oh, I don’t know. I just dip in and out. I’m only watching today because Brandy is coming out of her coma and she knows the phony prince’s body is hidden in the boathouse.” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Ow!” – Lisa Simpson “You just need to develop a callus. . . . You see? Now, that’s a sewing finger, honey!” – Marge Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I’ve suffered as much as anyone at the paws of this dog. But when I look into his vacant brown eyes, I just can’t bear to let him go. I’m sure Mom agrees with me.” – Lisa Simpson “No, I’m afraid I agree with your father.” – Marge Simpson “You do? Ha ha ha ha!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Ladies and gentlemen, most of you already know that with a little love and compassion, any puppy will grow up to be a cuddly little bundle of joy. . . . Stuff and nonsense taught by charlatans and learned by bloody twits!” – Emily Winthrop Happy birthday Tracey Ullman!
Quote of the Day
“Look, Mom, I finished my patch! It depicts the two greatest musical influences in my life. On the left is Mr. Largo, my music teacher at school. He taught me that even the noblest concerto can be drained of its beauty and soul. And on the right is Bleeding Gums Murphy. He taught me that music is like a fire in your belly that comes out of your mouth, so you better stick an instrument in front of it.” – Lisa Simpson Happy birthday, Alf Clausen!
Quote of the Day
“Lenny, I need to leave early. Cover for me, will you?” – Homer Simpson “Hey, sure thing, Homer.” – Lenny
Book Review: The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets
“What’s your favorite subject?” – Dr. Hibbert “Arithmetic.” – Lisa Simpson “Oh, arithmetic. Now, before you know it, you will be back among your polygons, your hypotenuse, and your Euclidean algorithms.” – Dr. Hibbert As an academic subject, math has always stood at the extreme end, as the hardest of the “hard” sciences. Even physics has uncertainty built right into it; math simply has things that have not yet been proven. That’s all well and good for mathematicians when it comes to inter-disciplinary dick measuring contests, but it also makes math more abstract and difficult to explain to the uninitiated. Worse still, that very “purity” makes math more resistant to analogy and simplification than any other field of study because the big things in math are irreducibly incomprehensible. The physics of a black hole, the biochemistry of a chameleon, the geology of a volcano, years of study and graduate degrees lend the best possible understanding of them, but the basics can be grasped by anyone. Textbooks, TV specials, and museum exhibits can contain simple diagrams and awe-inspiring pictures that make even hideously complicated events and processes seem kindergarten simple. Math is too abstract for that kind of stuff. You can come up with pretty visualizations of prime numbers, for example, but someone who doesn’t have a day-to-day familiarity with them or their underlying concepts isn’t going to understand it in the least. Prime numbers can’t be analogized to anything else, nor can they be simplified (almost by definition), you simply have to use them a lot to really get them, and most people don’t. That abstract unfamiliarity has always been the great bane of popular writing about math. The most fundamental concepts exist only on sheets of paper or inside someone else’s mind, so all an expert writing for a lay audience can do is cite fun examples and hope that at least some of them click. Wisely, Simon Singh’s The Simpsons And Their Mathematical Secrets follows exactly that template, and does so rather well. The book isn’t a grand explanation of math or its history, it’s a collection of math concepts and back-stories that have surfaced in The Simpsons or Futurama over the years. Singh naturally focuses on the many writers (of both shows) who have serious academic credentials, and we even get pictures of both Al Jean and Mike Reiss with their high school math clubs. The best parts of the book are the ones that directly combine the shows and the numbers. For example, in the chapter about pi, there’s a long discussion of Apu testifying against Marge in “Marge in Chains”. When Apu says that he can recite pi to forty-thousand places, that was indeed the record for memorization of pi at the time. Further, and I certainly didn’t know this, the 40,000th digit really is 1. They literally sent away to a guy at NASA, who printed out the whole thing and mailed it to them. (That, in turn, was referenced in “22 Short Films About Springfield”, when Moe sent away…
Quote of the Day
“There are two ways for a dog to relieve himself. One is like a faithful friend and partner for life. The other is like a hose without a fireman. Which way do you think that was, Mr. Simpson?” – Emily Winthrop “Like a hose . . . your wrinkled highness.” – Bart Simpson Happy birthday Tracey Ullman!
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user zappowbang. “I thought we agreed to consult each other before any major purchases.” – Marge Simpson “Well, you bought all those smoke alarms and we haven’t had a single fire.” – Homer Simpson
Bonus Quote of the Day
“No way, she’s faking! If Lisa stays home, I stay home.” – Bart Simpson “If Bart stays home, I’m going to school.” – Lisa Simpson “Fine. Then, wait a minute, if Lisa goes to school, then I go to school. But then Lisa stays home, so I stay home. So, Lisa goes to school . . .” – Bart Simpson “Lisa, don’t confuse your brother like that.” – Marge Simpson Happy 20th Anniversary to “Bart’s Dog Gets an F”! Original airdate 7 March 1991.
Crazy Noises: Homer the Father
“You know they got the Velcro straps, a water pump in the tongue, built in pedometer, reflective side walls, and little vanity license plates!” – Ned Flanders 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 “suitors”). In the chat below, we briefly mention the differences between the two images above. In addition to the names, the situations are almost identical: an expensive item in a window is coveted by a character. The difference between the two is small, just a few words, but indicative of why The Simpsons was such a great show and Zombie Simpsons is merely ordinary television. For The Simpsons, just calling the super shoes “Assassins” wasn’t good enough. The show made that very brief shot more than it needed to be by adding in a little joke tagline. But they weren’t so impressed with their handiwork that they lingered over it, and they certainly weren’t going to break the flow of the episode by trying to make more of that little joke than it deserved. For Zombie Simpsons, calling the dirt bike “Street Assassin” was good enough. But even then they couldn’t leave good enough alone, cutting to an extended fantasy sequence directly afterwards. It’s only after we’ve seen Bart ride his bike for twenty seconds that they finally get to what could have been a decent little joke, the statue at right. Bart probably would like a statue of himself that shoots fire from his eyes and his ass, but he could’ve envisioned such a thing immediately upon seeing the bike. The stadium riding wasn’t necessary to get to the statue, and the result is that the episode has been doubly damaged. Not only has the pacing been badly disrupted, but the statue isn’t the kind of gag that is worth such a long buildup. As a quick joke, it could work; as a payoff, it doesn’t. “Homer the Father” has a lot of things like this. So even though, credit where credit is due, it has more potentially decent ideas than your average Zombie Simpsons episode, it still sucks. [Note: Again, Dave was unable to join us. He’s hoping his schedule eases up soon, though if it does we’ll just suck away his free time by making him watch a show he doesn’t like anyway, so I’d say he’s screwed. Coincidentally, No Homers member Zombies Rise from the Sea e-mailed in and asked if he could sit in some time, so we had a trio anyway.]…
Quote of the Day
“Is my dog dead, ma’am?” – Bart Simpson “You don’t know how often I’m asked that. ‘Choke chain’ is a misnomer, trust me, they are always breathing.” – Emily Winthrop Happy birthday Tracey Ullman!
Original Replaced with Bloated and Dull Facsimile
“Father McGrath, I thought you were dead!” – Soap Opera Babe “I was!” – Father McGrath In addition to taking up an enormous amount of barren screen time, last night’s death and immediate resurrection of Fat Tony was so blisteringly stupid that I’m not even sure which TV Trope applies. There are a lot of them about death and hacktacular resurrection, but a quick search didn’t turn up one where a long lost relative shows up, does nothing, and then becomes the replacement. The closest similarity that came to mind was Beerfest (which is the only non-Super Troopers movie from the Super Troopers guys that wasn’t half bad). In Beerfest, one of the main characters dies, but is immediately replaced by his brother who, winking at the camera the whole time, also takes the deceased’s name and wife while he’s at it. It was deliberately stupid in a movie where drinking beer is a blood sport and death can be the penalty for failure, so in context it made sense. The same cannot be said of “Donnie Fatso”, which is shot through with horns of suspense and a vaguely melancholy tune. It invests a great deal of time in trying to get us to care about . . . well, it’s never really clear, but somehow deep emotions are supposed to be involved. As with so many Zombie Simpsons episodes, the story is so poorly constructed that not only is there no resolution to what happens, but the main plot peters out with four minutes of screen time still to go. That led to the time killing resurrection . . . segment? I’m not even sure what to call that. Anyway, the numbers are in and without football to protect it, Zombie Simpsons’ ratings plunged. Last night’s meandering mobster episode was used to sweat snitches by a mere 7.31 million people. That’s the third lowest number all season, and leaves the fall segment of Season 22 with an average viewership of just 8.11 million. That makes it the lowest rated fall half of the season ever, and keeps Season 22 on pace to be the least watched in the history of the show by a pretty big margin.
Quote of the Day
“You, wandering mongrel, get out of my mom and pop operation!” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
Quote of the Day
“Uh, I changed my mind. I decided I don’t want these shoes.” – Homer Simpson “Hey, wait a minute, what happened here?” – Shoe Store Clerk “Well, my faithful dog was bringing me my shoes and they fell apart in his mouth.” – Homer Simpson “I’m sorry sir, our warranty doesn’t cover fire, theft or acts of dog.” – Shoe Store Clerk
Reading Digest: Sports Writing Edition
“Bad dog! Let go! Bad Santa’s Little Helper! Stop it . . . oh, not the sports section!” – Homer Simpson We have two links this week to pieces of sports writing. Once is coherent and well thought out, the other is not. It goes almost without saying, but the former includes excellent usage and the latter includes poor usage. There’s also a fictional teacher poll, a movie review, misspelled advocacy, vodka, a great tattoo, and lots of excellent usage. Enjoy. The Simpsons Movie Brings the Groove Back – Sort of – An opinion of the movie that’s more generous than mine, though he makes some good criticisms. Life Imitates The Simpsons – A guy in England who was harassing a gay couple who are neighbors of his had himself and his family pulled from their burning home by said gay couple. Guess he’ll have to start using the word “fruit” instead of “sissy”. Or, you know, their names. Gary Shteyngart’s Rules for Vodka Drinking – Oh vodka, if I remembered enjoying you, I wasn’t doing it right. From an interview with author Gary Shteyngart: ESQ: In Absurdistan, you wrote about these feasts of food and alcohol that become orgies of consumption. Was that a commentary on new Russian wealth or a nod to tradition? GS: Well, vodka has a huge history in Russia, in that it’s almost like a currency. It’s the one thing that keeps the country in the dark ages and having a rollicking good time. At one point, I believe Homer Simpson said, "To alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of our problems." It’s that kind of circular thinking that’s absolutely perfect. Alcohol causes a lot of problems, and then to solve these problems, you drink more. What other culture can consume that much alcohol and be around the next day? Close enough for extemporaneous excellent usage, though of course it’s actually “life’s problems” not “our problems”. The Top 5 Best Simpsons Games of All Time – A list of (mostly) Simpsons video games. Lesbian Bathhouse – This is neither a porn site nor one of those tasteful movies on late night cable, but rather a play in Edinburgh. From the description: A feminist comic romp In Helen Eisenbach’s comic piece, actresses turn up for an audition to a sexually charged theatre production, the creation of the heard but never seen Rod Laselle (voiced by Harry Shearer of The Simpsons and Spinal Tap fame). Go Harry go! Breaking down the epic career collapses – To my surprise, ESPN.com is still publishing Page 2. I thought they kept Bill Simmons and sent everyone else to a farm upstate where they’d have lots of space to run around and play with other writers. If this article is any indication of the current level of quality, that one-way farm trip may not be far off. This is supposed to be a list of ten “career collapses” and, while some qualify, I don’t see how the word “career”…
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Since you get paid either way, would it be a big deal to just let my dog pass?” – Bart Simpson “I see, rubber stamp, thank you very much, next in line, is that it?” – Emily Winthrop “Yeah.” – Bart Simpson “Heavens to Mergatroyd. Bart, perhaps I cling to the old ways like a well chewed shoe as the traditions I was weaned on are put to sleep or neutered one by one. But my time has not passed yet! The world does not need another college graduate who doesn’t know how to Sit!” – Emily Winthrop Happy Birthday Tracey Ullman!