“Ohhh doctor! We are seconds away from the 100M Butterfly and with the East German, heh heh, women, shaving their backs 9,000 miles away, the Americans are heavy favorites.” – Not Keith Jackson In our continuing mission to bring you only the finest in low class, low brow, and low tech internet Simpsons commentary we’re bringing back our “Crazy Noises” series and applying it to Season 21. Because doing a podcast smacks of effort we’re still using this “chatroom” thing that all the middle schoolers and undercover cops seem to think is so cool. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “patriotism ”). One of the nice things about actually posting these chats is that, unlike Dave and Mad Jon, if there’s something I forget to complain about I can rectify my omission by complaining about it now. And when we did this chat I forgot to complain about the “opening ceremony” thing. It goes on for a full minute and has, wait for it, two jokes. It takes Costas fifteen seconds just to set up the one note Ivan Reitman gag which then drags on for another twenty seconds. You could’ve kept all the jokes and gotten the whole opening ceremony scene down to ten seconds just by getting rid of the Costas exposition and not milking the “who you gonna call” thing. But then you’d be fifty seconds further away from a “whole” episode. They’re so transparently desperate to fill time that they might as well just give up and install a laughtrack. Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we commence with the curling? Mad Jon: Ok Charlie Sweatpants: I’ll start by going out on a limb and saying that I hated this fucking episode. Mad Jon: That may have been the worst episode I have seen in a long time. I would have to go back and check but I don’t think I say that too often. I think I usually say "That episode sucks" or something. Dave: It was undoubtedly and unrepentantly stupid, a massive waste of 23 minutes of my life. Charlie Sweatpants: The thing that really bothered me is that this is the kind of episode that they can sometimes scrape up to almost Season 12 standards. They’ve got a fresh topic to mock, they have the family go somewhere, there’s lots of new things. Dave: It’s the copout setup, right? Mad Jon: I think that has been a theme for the last few episodes. Charlie Sweatpants: And yet, all they came up with was a bunch of montages, several curling scenes that were identical and two subplots so sparse that can’t even be called "B". Mad Jon: But still, curling is terrible. Charlie Sweatpants: Curling is like any other niche sport, it’s laughable to everyone who doesn’t love it. The same is true of NASCAR, ballroom dancing, and consensual sodomy. Dave: It’s hard to mock something that no one cares about, and they didn’t even do a good job of it. It…
Tag: Boy Meets Curl
Synergy Skips to the End
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…
Zombie Simpsons Tanks Again
The 20th anniversary shine appears to have completely worn off and Zombie Simpsons is slinking into its usual winter doldrums. Last night’s bizarre compilation of curling scenes and unrelated montages was watched by a mere 5.87 million people. Hooray. For the record that’s the second straight episode to fall below six million and the fifth worst ever, narrowly missing out on fourth to last season’s “Coming to Homerica”. As usual Family Guy did better while its two spinoffs did slightly worse. The only disappointing thing about this number is that it isn’t lower. Right now the crown of Least Watched Season belongs to Season 20, but Season 21 would need ratings in the low 5 million range for the rest of the year to slink under Season 20’s dismal average of 7.12 million people. The 20th anniversary stuff probably means than Season 21 will be only the second least watched season. But we can hope! C’mon people of America, watch something else at 8 on Sundays!
Watered Down Orange Drink Has More Substance Than This
“My god man, I’ve watered her down as far as she’ll go. I cannot water no more!” – Groundskeeper Willie There were three competitive curling scenes in this episode. They all started and ended the same way. I don’t think they recycled any footage but, really, would it surprise you? In between curling segments the audience was repeatedly clubbed in the face with the fact that Homer and Marge love each other and a number of clock killing montages, including a hallucination, a one joke opening ceremony, and a Fantasia take off that finally got us to the credits. Despite appearing and disappearing seemingly at random, Skinner and his mother had a plot . . . well “arc” is probably too strong a word. Plot “dimple” maybe? I’m not sure. Also, Lisa and Bart were there and Bob Costas did his best Mitch Albom impression by pretending to satirize his profession. Anyway, continuing their policy of having one good joke per episode I did laugh at the “joyous” Swedes. But even that little pleasure was sucked out when the Swedes came back near the end and did nothing. Screen time must have been at a premium. The real Bob Costas and the actual Olympics were on opposite this, so if we’re lucky the ratings will be just as awful as two weeks ago.
Sunday Preview: “Boy Meets Curl”
Believe it or not, we first previewed this episode back in August and predictably forgot about it. Since then, the curling clusterfuck has gained a weaksauce title and a guest star (Bob Costas will play himself), but these menial changes have done little to alter our opinion that it’ll be a clumsy rehash of an existing Zombie Simpsons episode with a different sport. If you care, here’s the official description from the recently redecorated Simpsons Channel: Homer takes Marge out for a romantic evening of ice skating and hand-holding, but upon entering the rink, they encounter a curling team practicing. Marge and Homer take to the ice and discover their love for the sport, and soon after, join the curling team and compete with them in the Olympic trials. Team Springfield claims the win and moves on to the 2010 Vancouver Games where Bob Costas (guest-voicing as himself) covers the action. Meanwhile, sleazy vendors introduce Lisa to the world of collecting Olympic pins, and before long, Lisa is hopelessly addicted. Wunderbar. Let’s make a drinking game out of this: every time there’s a half-assed joke about Canada, do a shot, and “Curl” will just fly by.