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Tag: Homer Badman
Quote of the Day
“Hurry, Marge, if we get there early we can get our pictures taken with the two surviving Musketeers!” – Homer Simpson
Makeup Quote of the Day
“Of course, there’s no way to see into the Simpson home without some kind of infrared heat-sensitive camera. So, let’s turn it on. Now, this technology is new to me, but I’m pretty sure that’s Homer Simpson in the oven, rotating slowly. His body temperature has risen to over four hundred degrees. He’s literally stewing in his own juices!” – Kent Brockman
Quote of the Day
“Uh, you’re gonna have to put some sugar on that celery or get out, ma’am.” – Candy Convention Security Guy
Behind Us Forever: Looking for Mr. Goodbart
“Mr. Goodbar to the front desk. The front desk is looking for Mr. Goodbar.” – Candy Convention PA Season 28 has only a few episodes left, and the most distinct thing I can say about “Looking for Mr. Goodbart” is that it is one of them. They once again switched to a voiceover narration for (some of) the exposition, there was a subplot about Homer and Lisa playing a barely renamed Pokemon Go thing, and Bart spent much of the episode being nice to old ladies before he learned a lesson about it, or something. As usual, none of it makes sense, characters appear out of nowhere frequently, and what passes for the plot is too incoherent to really wrap up. (No, I have no idea what’s with the title. It worked as a throwaway joke in Season 6, here it’s just part of their sick need to make every episode title a pun.) – Since Zombie Simpsons never misses an opportunity to celebrate a meaningless milestone, this one opens with the first Ullman short (that was also in the “138th Episode Spectacular”) because it just passed its thirtieth anniversary (two weeks ago, but who’s counting?). There’s also a song. – The first scene is Bart getting gussied up in the bathroom before he goes out into a fancy restaurant and gives a table of old ladies a cup of tea. It then lurches right into voiceover narration: “I know what you’re thinking, this must be some kind of prank. Is there laxative in the punch bowl? Well, there is, but they’re doctors prescribed that. I’ve changed. I’ve become pinchable. You look confused. Why don’t I start from the beginning?” After that we go to the school with a “Two Months Earlier” subtitle. This is gonna be really dumb, isn’t it? – At grandparents day, Skinner and Chalmers are mad at Bart for adding some lyrics to some song. I’m glad they retired Krabappel after Marcia Wallace died (like they should’ve done for Lunchlady Doris), but it speaks to the creative bankruptcy of the show now that they don’t bother coming up with a replacement. This looks to be a very ordinary day in the fourth grade classroom, yet it’s being headed by Skinner and Chalmers. The nominal superintendent then yells at the nominal principal via text messages because Zombie Simpsons will cling to the rotting skeleton of The Simpsons and repeat jokes no matter what. Later, in Skinner’s office, Agnes shows up for no reason and Skinner makes Bart walk her to the bus stop because that’s totally in character for everyone. – Meanwhile, and in a highly timely parody, Lenny is playing “Peekymon Go”. (Ripped from the headlines!) He walks into the reactor core. Then Homer starts playing and does the same thing. – On their way out of the school, Bart and Agnes bond by messing with Martin’s grandma for some reason. In a completely believable and not at all inhuman turn of events, Martin’s grandma then gets mad at…
Quote of the Day
“Are you hugging the TV?” – Homer Simpson “No!” – Bart & Lisa Simpson
Quote of the Day
“There are only forty-nine stars on that flag.” – Marge Simpson “I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missoura!” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I don’t know Homer Simpson, I never met Homer Simpson, or had any contact with him, but . . . I’m sorry, I can’t go on” – Crying Woman “That’s okay, your tears say more than real evidence ever could.” – Talk Show Host
Quote of the Day
“C’mon, I’m a decent guy!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“This is hour fifty-seven of our live, round-the-clock coverage outside the Simpson estate. Remember, by the way, to tune in tonight at eight o’clock for highlights of today’s vigil, including when the garbage man came, and when Marge Simpson put the cat out. Possibly because it was harassed, we don’t know.” – Kent Brockman
Reading Digest: Fan Made Treats Edition
“My only hope is this homemade Prozac . . . Hmm, needs more ice cream.” – Homer Simpson I’ve long been of the belief that the stuff ordinary fans come up with is far, far superior to all that crappy merchandise FOX allows to be pumped out. This week we have several kick ass examples, including two that you can eat, a cake and a chocolate Homer. In addition to that, we’ve got a couple of election related links, the original Monkey’s Paw, a couple of lists and a Lego Flanders. Enjoy. The Simpson’s Ralph Wiggum Cut-Out Cake – Pictures of that Ralph Wiggum cake that went slightly viral this week in all phases of its construction. Excellent. “You call that a knife”: Knifey Spoony now a real game…kinda – I put this up on Twitter earlier this week, but you really need to see it for yourself. Someone went way above and beyond. It’s fantastic. Chalkboard Drawings: The “All Treehouse of Horror” edition – A teacher drew himself into Simpsons Halloween moments in chalk. Cool. Photo by henry_hargreaves_photo – Homer Simpson, frozen in chocolate carbonite. Bravo! Heroes of Cult: John Swartzwelder – He got a whole county named after him! The Simpsons’ Halloween: Top 5 – There’s always a few stragglers, and there’s no Zombie Simpsons here. Pic: This Ralph Wiggum protest banner from La Liga is just great – Indeed it is. And there’s even a point to it! Torcida faz protesto na Espanha fantasiada de Simpsons – And speaking of Spanish soccer and the show, this YouTube video from which I do not understand one word. Lots of effort appears to have gone into both the banners and the costumes, though. Blackney Spears – Heh. You won’t believe how much these phone games make per day… – Sure I would. Though according to these numbers, TSTO is way down in revenue. A mere 157 ivory back-scratchers per day? This time last year they were doing double that. MATURE Cumming up Milhouse Bart Pinback Button Limited Edition – It’s just a button, but it involves Bart having a vagina and googly eyes, plus the birth of Milhouse. You have been warned/intrigued. The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs – Want to read the original? Here you go. The Best Things About the 90’s – Of course the show is on here. It couldn’t not be. The Sea Captain syndrome – How is writer’s block like a casino pitch? Find out! Magnificent 7 – TV Kids – The Simpson kids make the cut. 5-sentence review of ‘The Simpsons: Opposites A-Frack’ – I really like these: Anyway, I was, as usual, bored by an episode that feels like a lecture from somebody who listens to NPR than actual satire or comedy. New trending GIF tagged black and white halloween… – The couch gag where they all run in as skeletons. New trending GIF tagged the simpsons time driving… – If only Lenny had someplace to be. New trending GIF tagged the simpsons jumping trampoline… – Bart will never get tired of this, and Lisa’s gonna have her wedding there. Could…
Reading Digest: FXX Is *Really* Bad At TV Edition
“But those shows all look so crummy.” – Homer Simpson “We could dress it up a bit. We could bring a fern, and a folding chair from the garage, and the most decorative thing of all: the truth.” – Marge Simpson FXX got a lot of good press out of this Simpsons marathon thing. Then they went and stretched the image in a way so dumb that I initially didn’t even consider it a possibility: Oof. As plenty of people on Twitter have pointed out, that looks atrocious. Maybe you don’t want to just have black bars on either side, but there are ways to do that without making the entire run of The Simpsons (and a lot of Zombie Simpsons) look like that bad old early days of HD when people wanted to use the whole screen regardless of how it looked. Put a backdrop around the sides, maybe add some running info about the episodes or the marathon itself, do that thing where there’s an extra blurred out edge . . . something, anything but stretching the image. Shit like this is why I’m glad I don’t have cable anymore. (Incidentally, that image came from our old friend Sebastian Nebel’s Twitter feed. He’s tweeting great images from each episode as they air. Highly recommended.) Anyway, this week’s Reading Digest is incomplete for the simple reason that there is lots of Simpsons chatter on-line right now because of the marathon, but the marathon is itself has only just begun. (They’re in the middle of Season 3 as I type this.) So there are marathon links below, as well as the more usual stuff. I’ll cull some of the best marathon stuff I find into it’s own post next week. Enjoy. The Greatest Line Every ‘Simpsons’ Character Ever Delivered – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this great list (with lots of video). I saw one quote from Season 12, but everything else was from earlier. The Simpsons said it: 9 times ‘The Simpsons’ embiggened the American lexicon – The FXX marathon has prompted a lot of retrospective type articles and posts, most of which are kinda similar. This one, however, takes a good long look at several of the show’s new words and has a healthy list of honorable mentions to boot. My Favorite Frames from Homer Defined – Nebel couldn’t pick just one from “Homer Defined”, and it’s easy to see why. The Best. Show. Ever. Zings Libraries – Some non-Zombie Simpsons library moments. See the world’s magazine covers from the day ‘The Simpsons’ premiered – Sting was on the cover of GQ. Moe Szyslak is The Simpsons’ best character, and the heart of its comedy. – This is so perfectly a #SlatePitch that it’s almost painful. I stopped reading after this: The most important decision The Simpsons ever made in its early years was to reimagine itself out of being a show about Bart Simpson into being a show about Homer Simpson. Through this transition—which happened so seamlessly that it was barely even…
Quote of the Day
“As you can see, I have created a lemon ball so sour it can only be safely contained in a magnetic field. The candy, known as 77X42 – where the hell is the candy?” – Professor Frink “I don’t know.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“What’s that?” – Homer Simpson “That is the rarest Gummy of them all: the Gummy Venus de Milo, carved by Gummy artisans who work exclusively in the medium of Gummy.” – Candy Convention Guy
Quote of the Day
“Tonight on Rock Bottom, we go undercover at a sex farm for sex hookers.” – Godfrey Jones “I keep tellin’ ya, I just grow sorghum here.” – Farmer “Uh-huh, and where are the hookers?” – Reporter “Round back. . . . Oops.” – Farmer
Quote of the Day
“Hey, kids, lots of candy left for breakfast!” – Homer Simpson “Ugh.” – Bart & Lisa Simpson “Why don’t we give it to some needy children then?” – Marge Simpson “Unh-ugh.” – Bart & Lisa Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Now, here are some results from our phone-in poll. Ninety-five percent of the people believe Homer Simpson is guilty. Now, of course, this is just a television poll, which is not legally binding, unless Proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will.” – Kent Brockman
Oh Hell, Let’s Move the Town Again
“Homer, that’s your solution to everything, to move under the sea. It’s not going to happen!” – Marge Simpson “Not with that attitude.” – Homer Simpson Give Zombie Simpsons credit for consistency, for the 500th episode they served up a perfectly banal rendition of their usual hacktacular schlock. They recycled two old ideas (family leaves Springfield, rebuild the town), had an illogical, meaningless and irrelevant celebrity voicing himself, and left plot threads hanging all over the place. No real reason is given for why the town suddenly decides they miss the Simpsons, nothing about the “Outlands” makes sense, either as a post-apocalyptic environment or as a modern “off the grid” community, and what few jokes there were leaned heavily on Homer getting hurt and bizarre asides. To top it all off, they had a lot of filler in the form of an ultra long couch gag, a second opening in the middle of the episode, and a bunch of set pieces that dragged on interminably (e.g. Wiggum and the cat thing, parading the family out of town). For examples of all of these problems we need look no further than the sudden u-turn the episode took after its clock killing “The Outlands” opening. They had just reached their destination, but after talking to the wildly out of place Julian Assange for no reason, Marge says she misses Springfield and then – wham – they’re back in Springfield. The first scene is them already in the heart of the city before they decamp for a couple of quick stops at the Lard Lad sign, the Bowlarama, and their house. None of these are related in the least aside from being in Springfield. To get them back out of Springfield (after the bullies mysteriously disappear from the house), they essentially rerun the earlier scene from the town hall. This one occurs at night and six minutes deeper into the episode, but basically nothing has happened in that time other than some disjointed set pieces. Compounding the problem, there isn’t anything in the second expulsion that even so much as hints at, much less actually sets up, the eventual ending where – for no discernable reason – the rest of the town decides that they all want out of Springfield. Apart from the couch gag and the passive aggressive title card at the end (and, for the record, I’ve been outside several times already today) there wasn’t much in the way of celebratory fireworks here. Abandoning the town to build a shanty one a few miles down the road sounds epic, until you remember that in just the last few years they’ve had Springfield fenced off from immigrants, descend into chaos from Lisa’s social network, and irradiated by a nuclear bomb. Abandoning or destroying Springfield is unexceptional these days. Anyway, the numbers are in and they are wretched, despite all the hype. Last night just 5.79 million viewers wondered why this thing hadn’t ended hundreds of episodes ago. That’s an improvement from last…
Compare & Contrast: Conventioneering
“Sorry kids, but this is the one event I want my darling wife by my side.” – Homer Simpson “Oh, well thank you, Homer. But take one of the kids.” – Marge Simpson “Marge, they can’t carry enough candy! They have puny little muscles, not big ropey ones like you.” – Homer Simpson Like last week, there are quite a few aspects of “The Food Wife” which were done better on actual episodes of The Simpsons. There was the family trying out ethnic food, which made more sense and had more to do with the rest of the episode in “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish”. There was Homer’s now advanced woodworking skills, which were probably intended as a callback of some kind but which only reminded me how little Zombie Simpsons is like its predecessor. There was especially the way Marge becomes afraid that she’s no fun, which was infinitely funnier and more believable in “Bart’s Inner Child”. For sheer simplicity though, nothing really beats the way “The Food Wife” and “Homer Badman” both open: with the family going to a convention. The differences in the things Zombie Simpsons cares about and the things The Simpsons cared about are massively apparent right in the opening scenes. As “The Food Wife” begins, Lisa and Bart have earned a reward of some kind and are going to get a “Saturday Surprise Dad Day”. As soon as Marge announces that, the kids cheer and Homer lets us know that this is something that happens quite often. In just this one scene we can see how much the family has degenerated into characterless, one dimensional nobodies. Nothing says “The Simpsons” like a prosperous family that loves spending time together! Homer, the man who used to routinely avoid doing anything with his kids, is excited to take them somewhere on his precious Saturday. Bart and Lisa are thrilled at the prospect of some of Homer’s half assed over-parenting (and Bart has somehow been behaving well). And Marge, despite the jealousy that the audience will repeatedly see her go through for the rest of the episode, is just peachy keen on all of this. Not only do none of these things fit with who these people are supposed to be, but since Homer rattles off two things he’s done before it means that it’s been going on like this for a while. This is particularly jarring when it comes to Marge, since “cemetery paintball” and “go karts on real roads” don’t sound like activities she’d want her ten-year-old son or eight-year-old daughter doing. The entire scene is pure Zombie Simpsons, apathetic towards the characters and generally nonsensical (and we haven’t even gotten to the convention yet). Compare that with the opening scene from “Homer Badman”, which also takes place at the kitchen table. This one opens with Bart picking the non-marshmallow pieces out of his cereal, Lisa calling him on it (revealing her own hatred of the non-marshmallow pieces in the process), and then…
Quote of the Day
“Homer, are all these pockets necessary?” – Marge Simpson “They wouldn’t be if you were willing to sit in a hollowed out wheelchair.” – Homer Simpson
