“Someone squeezed all the life out of these kids. And unless movies and teevee have lied to me, it’s a crusty, bitter old dean.” – Homer Simpson If you Google “Zombie Simpsons”, the first result is a post I wrote last year called “The Cost of Zombie Simpsons”. Not being familiar with anything more than the barest outlines of Google’s proprietary alchemy, I can only guess as to why it’s that one and not another. But if I had pick of our back catalog to occupy that choice spot of search real estate (it gets more traffic than all but a handful of pages here), it’d probably be that one. My strained pollution metaphor was prompted by my discovery of a Futurama fan who had never seen “Marge vs. The Monorail”. He knew of The Simpsons, but had never seen one of their most well known episodes. I wondered how many people out there, too young to have watched the show’s decay as it happened, lived under the misunderstanding that it had always been so ordinary. This week I came across two blogs written by guys who fall under that age bracket. The first is a student at Tufts University who writes about television for the campus newspaper. In an article titled “Fox offers laughs beyond Seth MacFarlane”, he spends 769 words talking about all of the comedies currently broadcast on FOX. (The piece is part of a series of four, one for each network.) This is the Simpsons bit: Outside the MacFarlane empire, "The Simpsons" is still going strong in its 22nd season. It’s not what it used to be, but it still has some smart plotting, good jokes and original stories after all these years. I obviously agree with the part about it not being what it used to be and disagree with the part about it being “smart”, “good”, and “original”. But that’s neither here nor there. What’s revealing about this is the fact that the entire article is about FOX comedies, and yet those two fleeting sentences are the only part that discusses Zombie Simpsons. The show is only mentioned one other time in the entire piece, and that’s just to note that it’s been overshadowed by MacFarlane’s television hydra. In other words, even to people who like it, Zombie Simpsons is far less culturally interesting than every other program on FOX. It’s a placeholder that gets brought up only for the sake of completeness. The second blog is brand new. Its author is a student at the University of Arizona and the first four substantive posts are a top 25 Simpsons episode countdown. I’ve seen a lot of these kinds of lists over the years. Most of the time they’re either entirely or predominantly episodes from the before time, the long long ago; those are my favorite. Sometimes they’re a jumble of The Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons, with picks ranging from Season 1 to the present; I like those kind less. But, hey, it’s somebody’s…
Tag: Homer Goes to College
Quote of the Day
Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user bsabarnowl. “Finally, the great taste of Worcestershire sauce in a soft drink.” – TV Announcer “Ahhh, steaky.” – TV Guy [Edited because I’ve been hearing what I wanted to hear since 1993. I’m not going to stop referring to Worcestershire sauce as “stanky” though.]
Quote of the Day
“Don’t worry, Simpson, it just so happens I have a chair at Springfield University.” – C.M. Burns
Animation Showcase: Homer Goes to College
– By Bob Mackey When The Simpsons had its prime-time debut in 1989, the show’s animation was considered crude by most. While it’s true that the visuals improved by leaps and bounds after that first rocky year, the original 12 episodes of The Simpsons – despite their roughness – still stand as a major leap forward in the progress of television animation. And over The Simpsons’ first handful of years, talented artists like Brad Bird, David Silverman, Jeffrey Lynch, Jim Reardon, Wes Archer, and Rich Moore (amongst others) not only defined and refined the look of the show; they also raised the bar for a genre of entertainment largely considered — at the time, anyway — a brainless distraction for equally brainless children. For these visionaries, The Simpsons provided the opportunity for endless experimentation; which is why it’s no wonder that most of these folks went on to fame and fortune at outstanding animation studios like Pixar and Rough Draft. Generally speaking, the animation on the first six-or-so years of The Simpsons is far “looser” than what it would eventually become; the art on these early seasons complemented the excellent writing, instead merely serving as just a platform for the dialogue. For lack of a better term, directors and animators on The Simpsons were once allowed to make their drawings more “cartoony,” which meant deviating from the standard design of a model sheet for the sake of drawing the strong poses necessary to create a visually interesting and, most importantly, funny image. Of course, when this is taken too far, the results can be disastrous: you only need to look at the outtakes from “Some Enchanted Evening” to see what happens when a group of animators gets The Simpsons completely wrong. But, when used correctly, brief bits of cartooniness can add vibrancy and emotion to a scene – which is something the show used to do very well. Over the years, The Simpsons’ animation became much more conservative and homogenized, and by the end of season eight, the show had lost nearly all of its cartoon snappiness. And as a fan of the show, it’s this quality I miss the most. For my first post on Dead Homer Society, I’ve decided to visually dissect “Homer Goes to College,” which is an excellent showcase for the brilliant animation once seen on The Simpsons. For those worried, this examination isn’t going to be couched in technical terms; as an animation enthusiast, I’m going to try and break this down into terms everyone can understand. This early scene of Homer chasing a bee down a hallway relies entirely on the animation for its humor. Sure, the idea itself is a little funny, but a sitcom-staged shot of Homer running wouldn’t be as funny as what we see here: strong, goofy poses that punctuate his haplessness. Here’s a brief instance of some cartoony punctuation. These drawings are incredibly odd when compared to how we normally see Homer, but he quickly snaps back into his…
Quote of the Day
“The bee bit my bottom! Now my bottom’s big!” – Homer Simpson
Synergy Has a Nostalgia Hangover
“Duh, Homer, why are we down here?” – Bernie “Aw geez, I told you Bernie, to guard the bee.” – Homer Simpson “But why?” – Less Gifted Employee “Oh you guys are pathetic, no wonder Smithers made me head bee guy.” – Homer Simpson Having read more of these IGN Simpsons reviews than I care to think about it’s become clear that they just don’t put a lot of thought into them. Case in point is this week’s review which has only two main elements, 1) praising the show for being on the air a long time, and 2) retelling the various setups that made up the plot. Number 2 is pretty standard for these reviews, but I think the presence of number 1 is mostly a carryover from the last few weeks. IGN got locked into nostalgia mode over all the 20th anniversary stuff and just sort of mindlessly kept going with it. February 1, 2010 – After their 450th 451st episode focusing on Krusty and a celebratory special spreading the love and dissing Zombie Simpsons, it was nice to have things get got back to the familiar level of suck with "Million Dollar Maybe." And by familiar level of suck, I mean watching what’s left of Homer do what he can to make his family happy, while screwing it up as he tries random, crazy shit. Sunday night’s episode had Homer yet again letting down Marge, winning a million dollars for “plot” reasons, spending it all without her knowledge for some reason and still finishing the half-hour in the arms of the woman he loves. All this and laughs, too. Things started with Homer and Marge preparing a musical toast for a cousin’s wedding contrivance. But on the day of the wedding contrivance, Homer opened a fortune cookie stating this was his lucky day. At first, Homer blew off the fortune: "Any part of a cookie you can’t eat is just a waste of time." But his luck did indeed start to turn as crashing into a vending machine resulted in its contents raining down for Homer’s enjoyment for some reason. Instead of heading straight to the wedding contrivance, Homer stopped to buy a lottery ticket and got stuck a very long, very slow line for about three hours for one more unknown reason. It was a fun hacktacular set up, leaving Homer feeling plot guilty about missing the toast and unable to tell Marge that he was instead buying a winning lottery ticket. It was a nice touch ate some time to have Lenny and Carl help convince Homer that the fortune cookie may be right. I especially loved the headline from the Beijing Daily Worker: "New Fortune Cookies Vaguer, More Accurate." To further stretch things out Homer used Barney to pick up his winning check, a good majority of which went to Uncle Sam: "This money will go to partially cover the cost of a study to decide what to do with the money." Unable to…
Crazy Noises: Rednecks and Broomsticks
“Marge, they don’t have anywhere to stay. And they’re geniuses! They’ll solve all our problems, they’ll elevate us to the status of kings on Earth!” – Homer Simpson “Mr. Simpson we all have nose bleeds.” – Black Nerd 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 “dialogue”). Once upon a time there was a Simpsons episode titled “Homer Goes to College”. In it Homer had a reason for going to college, went to college, met three nerds and hilarity ensued. The nerds three, though only one of them even had a name, were given plenty of screen time to run amok in their nerdy way as the kind of unabashed self-parodying stereotypes for which The Simpsons justly became famous. The nerds discussed Star Trek on-line, had a rock tumbler, got nose bleeds, and thought about correcting for wind resistance when trying to save an adult male from being hit by a speeding car. They did stuff. On Sunday Zombie Simpsons had an episode with three Wiccans that Lisa met for no particular reason. Despite being introduced fairly early in the episode they were given almost no screen time. What time they did get was spent on dialogue comprised of them explaining themselves and jokeless exposition used to move the story along. They didn’t do anything but stand there and wait for stuff to happen to them. They weren’t characters; they were props (and poorly used ones at that). Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we get started? Dave: More Bambi killing, less of everything else Mad Jon: Did anyone get the feeling that episode started as a cut scene from the movie? Charlie Sweatpants: Not really, but I see where you’re coming from on that. Other than the frozen lake there really wasn’t any need for it to be winter, but it did give it a bit of an "Alaska" feel. Mad Jon: Yeah, I more or less got that feeling as they were driving and had to be saved by Cletus. Wow, they are really going out of there way to ruin all the best one-line characters. Dave: I didn’t expect the Cletus/Homer thing so soon, nor did I expect it to be more substantial than that Wiccan bullshit Not that any of that matters, it was still boring and sucked balls Mad Jon: It was pretty bad. How much do you think FOX gets for each scene with an iPod? Charlie Sweatpants: I’ll give them this, last week when they had Bart caring a ton about his future they just did it. Here they did give Lisa a single line about still being a skeptic…
Quote of the Day
“Marge, try to understand. There are two kinds of college students: jocks and nerds. As a jock, it is my duty to give nerds a hard time.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Oh, and one more thing. You must find the Jade Monkey before the next full moon.” – C.M Burns “Actually sir, we found the Jade Monkey. It was in your glove compartment.” – Mr. Smithers “And the road maps and ice scraper?” – C.M. Burns “They were in there too, sir.” – Mr. Smithers “Excellent, it’s all falling into place.” – C.M. Burns
Crazy Noises: The Homer They Fall
“Those ‘crazy noises’ are computer signals.” – Skinny Nerd “Yeah, some guys at MIT are sending us reasons why Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk.” – Black Nerd “Hah! They’re out of their minds.” – Fat Nerd In an attempt to fill the summer with love, hate and pointless Simpsons commentary we at the Dead Homer Society are going to spend some time overthinking Season 8. Why Season 8? Because Season 8 is when The Simpsons really began to deteriorate into Zombie Simpsons. That’s why. Because we’re cutting edge and ultra-modern we’re using a newfangled, information-superhighway fad called a “chatroom” to conduct our conversation. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “sphygmomanometer”). Today’s episode is 803, “The Homer They Fall“, and we’ll be back tomorrow with 804, “Burns Baby, Burns“. Mad Jon: Well, we can start by perhaps discussing the crapitude of the episodes in question, especially as they follow one my personal favorites [Editor’s Note: That would be “You Only Move Twice”, aka the Hank Scorpio episode.] Charlie Sweatpants: Well, looking at my notes for “Homer They Fall” three things really struck me. The first is that this is one of the first whiffs we get of Homer being bipolar, weird, and ultra stupid. The second is that there’re still a lot of good gags in there, it’s clearly not Zombie Simpsons, but it’s also clearly not real Simpsons. Third, and far and away the biggest, is just how fucking lazy the story is. It’s just bad storytelling, through Homer’s improbable boxing career, fighting the champ for no reason, then it ends with Moe flying in on the fan guy thing? Mad Jon: There are some pretty good sight gags too, and they don’t go too far like a zombie episode would, I cite Barney drinking varnish and the very brief description of the ‘stinger’ Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, both of those struck me as something that would’ve been dragged on a lot longer these days. I was also a big fan of the entrance to the big fight with the sign that says “Tasteful Attire Prohibited” and then you notice all the weird shit people are wearing. Mad Jon: but then there is that stupid montage of the train yard circuit or whatever Dave: boxcar charlie or something like that? Mad Jon: I think it was in black and white no less Dave: the dude fighting for a sandwich? Charlie Sweatpants: Well, they use the famous song from that one opera that’s been in about forty movies and TV shows before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakm%C3%A9 Mad Jon: too bad I’m not into opera I feel they did a good job with the Don King impersonation I also like his desire to have a fight go long enough so the fans have a chance to get drunk Charlie Sweatpants: Lucious Sweet was right on the money, but the problem I had with him goes to what I was saying earlier about bad story telling. Lucious wants someone to…