“Evening, Simpson. You got a short in your tail light. Started blinking when you made that turn.” – Chief Wiggum
Tag: Homer vs. Patty And Selma
Quote of the Day
“Try to be nice to my sisters. It’s very hard on me to have you fighting all the time.” – Marge Simpson “Oh, okay, Marge! I’ll get along with them! Then I will hug some snakes. Yes! I will hug and kiss some poisonous snakes! . . . Now that’s sarcasm.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“These are yours, sir?” – DMV Boss “Yes. I am in flavor country.” – Homer Simpson “Both of them?” – DMV Boss “It’s a big country.” – Homer Simpson “Ladies, I apologize. And you, sir, are worse than Hitler.” – DMV Boss
Quote of the Day
“Oh, I’ll never pay off that debt!” – Homer Simpson “Need money fast? Got no experience? Set up, to elegance! Become a limo driver at Classy Joe’s.” – TV Announcer “That’s it! I’ll make money with a chauffeur job! Good thing you turned on that TV, Lisa.” – Homer Simpson “I didn’t turn it on. I thought you turned it on.” – Lisa Simpson “No. Well, anyway, turn it off.” – Homer Simpson “It is off.” – Lisa Simpson
Makeup Quote of the Day
“Am I wrong, or did it just get fatter in here?” – Patty Bouvier
Quote of the Day
“How’s Dad today?” – Lisa Simpson “Not too good, Lisa. Frankly, he’s underneath the table.” – Marge Simpson “Nobody make me any breakfast. A man so deeply in debt doesn’t deserve it.” – Homer Simpson “But I like to make you breakfast!” – Marge Simpson “In that case, I’ll just have french toast with double butter and a side of bacon. But no powdered sugar, I don’t deserve it. . . . Maybe a little powdered sugar.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“I’m sorry, Homer doesn’t mean to be rude. He’s just a very complicated man.” – Marge Simpson “Wrong!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Since you’re trying to make a getaway in park, I’m guessing you don’t have a license.” – Chief Wiggum
Quote of the Day
“Alright, girls, today we learn the Dance of the Fairy Queens. You can either be a fairy or a queen. It’s wide open!” – Ballet Instructor
Quote of the Day
“Homer, why didn’t you tell me?” – Marge Simpson “I was ashamed, Marge. I failed you as a husband and a provider, and at best I was a B+ dog. I’ll understand if you want to sleep on the couch tonight.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Uh, I need another extension on my mortgage payments.” – Homer Simpson “I understand that, Mr. Simpson, but according to our computer, your credit history is not good. It says here that you’ve been pre-declined for every major credit card. It also says that you once grabbed a dog by the hind legs and pushed him around like a vacuum cleaner.” – Bank of Springfield Guy “That was in the third grade!” – Homer Simpson “Yeah, well, it all goes on your permanent record.” – Bank of Springfield Guy
Renewal Announcement Overdue [Updated]
“Sweet, trusting Marge, I can’t let you down. I’ll get some money somehow. . . . Hello, Vegas? Gimme a hundred bucks on red. . . . D’oh! Alright, I’ll send you a check.” – Homer Simpson It’s now officially mid-October and there has been no announcement from FOX or anyone else about next season. For most shows, that wouldn’t be an issue, but for Zombie Simpsons, which is wildly asynchronous with the rest of network television’s renew/cancel announcements, it’s very odd. Thanks to the show’s ancient pedigree and very long production schedule, the last couple of renewal announcements have come in early or mid-October. Well . . . it’s that time of year and we haven’t heard anything. Complicating matters is the general laziness of the entertainment press. Last year we got the renewal announcement for Season 26 on October 4th. But that’s all we got. Unlike previous renewals, which bragged about the new episode total, all the press release said was that the show would be around for Season 26. And while plenty of sites reported “Simpsons renewed” none that I was able to find (then or now) contained an episode total. (Even The New York Times just wrote up the press release and didn’t ask any questions.) The episode total is more important than the season number because, as I’ve said before, how the show ends is determined by the production runs, not the broadcast runs. For several years now, FOX has been ordering 22-episode production runs. The “SABF” run comprised most of Season 25, and its first few episodes have spilled into Season 26. Sometime soon, the “TABF” run will start being broadcast and will make up most of Season 26. This is all entirely normal. However, since the copy and paste brigade that passes for entertainment journalism didn’t give us an episode total, it’s at least possible that instead of ordering a full 22-episode production run last year, FOX only ordered a shortened run that will end this spring instead of spilling over into next fall. If that’s the case, then we could see the end of the show in 2015. Now, I don’t think that is the case and I don’t want to start any rumors that the show is finally going to end. Quite frankly, the opposite is more likely. Odds are that last year they ordered a full 22-episode TABF run, no reporters bothered to ask them for a total, and that the show is already de-facto renewed for at least a partial Season 27. But the reason this time of year is important is because of the extraordinarily long lead time needed to create an episode. The show can’t wrap the finale the week before it’s broadcast and just send everyone home. Instead, the production will gradually shut down months ahead of time as new scripts stop being ordered and the final episodes wind their way through the animation process. In the age of Twitter and friends, there’s no way you could keep that secret,…
Reading Digest: Promising Features, Regrettable Drawbacks Edition
“Congratulations, Mr. Simpson, this invention of yours has made us all rich, especially you! It’s simple yet ingenious, and it fits right in the palm of your hand. Every person in America now owns one of these, and in many cases, three or four.” – Imaginary Executive “Uh, could I just get a look at that?” – Homer Simpson “Now, why would you need to see it? You’re the genius who invented the . . . product in question.” – Imaginary Executive The big news this week was the first look at “Simpsons World”, an app/website-of-some-kind that’ll be debuting in October. I have very mixed feelings about it, and I’m sure we’ll learn more once people who aren’t obsequious entertainment reporters can get their hands on it. For now, however, there’s quite a lot to be excited about (easy access to clips, being able to stream the show) and quite a lot to be pissed about (you must have cable, your cable company must have FXX, AND it’s only in the US). How much of either ends up in the final product remains to be seen. In addition to that we’ve got word record breaking tattoos, two more Lego links, old video games, finger nail art, fan art, and some excellent usage. Enjoy. With FXX’s Simpsons World, A Clip Database Comes Closer to Non-Linear Reality – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is – by far – the most thoughtful first hand account of Simpsons World I read. There is some healthy skepticism here along with fanboi excitement about what some of the promised features could mean. It’s a little long, but in a week where every entertainment site seemed to do little more than quote the press release, you’re better off reading this than ten of those. The fact that there’s going to be a currency called “donuts” that you can “earn” makes me very leery, for obvious reasons. Here’s how the new Simpsons app will change your life – A quicker breakdown highlighting some of the main features. ‘The Simpsons World’ app won’t be available in Canada – And this is part of the reason why I have mixed feelings. TV rights are locked into ancient distribution deals that are definitely bad for fans and, one suspects, also bad for the people who create the shows. Endless legal arcana has always been a big help to the bosses screwing the worker bees. As Bill Oakley sarcastically noted earlier this week: Mondrian and Homer Simpson Inspired Wine Bottles – Some Russian designers created fake Homer and Marge wine bottles. They are gorgeous, too bad there’s no wine in them (yet). Simpsons Fan Sets Record With 41 Homer Simpson Tattoos – I put this up on Twitter a few days ago, but there’s plenty of good pictures at the link. The one of Homer inside his Ganesh costume is a nice touch. The … – Duplo Simpsons! You can’t mess up with Lego. – Surprisingly creepy Flanders. Looks like after the Gremlin got to him. “And I for one welcome our…
Reading Digest: I Am Smoten Edition
“Sometimes I think God is teasing me, just like he teased Moses in the desert.” – Homer Simpson Apologies for missing two consecutive weeks of Compare & Contrasts, but for the second straight week the eyetee gods decided to smite the hell out of me. Chillingly, both incidents started on Tuesday and weren’t totally cleaned up until Thursday, which means I will be walking on eggshells until at least next Wednesday. (Also, do not ever do business with Network Solutions “a web.com company”. They are incompetent, sleazy, hugely overpriced, use phrases like “part of our vertical” without irony or embarrassment, and have atrociously poor security. That is all.) In further bad news, this week’s Reading Digest is pretty short because the internet seemed to spend most of the week circle jerking over the upcoming Zombie Simpsons/Lego episode. All they did was release a promo image and a couple of self-congratulatory quotes about it, but everyone with access to a keyboard seemed to feel the need to write it up. (It’ll be interesting to see if Lego can budge the ratings. My guess is no.) We’ve got one link to all that brouhaha, plus a great video about the recent Sylvain Chomet couch gag, some fan art, several good lists, more fashionable threads, and a couple of people who agree with us. Enjoy. Flooby Nooby: Sylvain Chomet’s making of ‘The Simpsons couch gag’ – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this short and enjoyable YouTube video: The color was digital, but the drawings were done by hand. No wonder it looked so good. Also, watch to the end for Chomet’s joke, it’s funny. Old Man Yells At Cloud* – Baseball nostalgics are the worst, and this is an enjoyable fisking of one with plenty of (mostly non-Zombie) Simpsons references to boot. 15 Sitcom Characters Who Might Be Broke If They Lived In The Real World – How affordable would all those living rooms with couches be? It’s a neat graphic, but I don’t know where the hell they got Homer’s monthly income as $6,500. The First 12 Episodes Of ‘The Simpsons’ To Begin Your Marathon With – An excellent and explicitly non-Zombie Simpsons list. 5 For Friday: The 5 Best TV Moments in The Simpsons’ Universe – Another excellent list, nothing even close to Zombie Simpsons. 25 Years of The Simpsons. And 5 Potential Spin-Offs… – A list of possible new shows that implicitly agrees with us (“I can’t even remember the last time I caught a new episode of The Simpsons”). Over Easy Author Mimi Pond Interview – No real surprise here: What was it like writing the very first episode (“Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”) of The Simpsons? I don’t feel very good about that. I was friends with Matt Groening, and I’m still friends with Matt Groening. He was starting to have trouble with the producers of the show. I came in and they were having their troubles, and because I was friends with Matt, I wasn’t very welcome. And because I was a girl…
Quick Note on the Zombification of Patty & Selma
“When are you going to wake up and smell your husband, Marge?” – Selma Bouvier “Granted, you got some kids out of him, but when the seeds have been planted you throw away the envelope.” – Patty Bouvier My apologies, but there isn’t going to be a Compare & Contrast this week. My stupid real job threw up a bolt-from-the-blue minor crisis this week that is just now finally squared away, and I don’t have the energy to get my brains back into an episode I’ve already largely forgotten. However, there was one thing that’s been bugging me about “Luca$”: what the hell was with Patty and Selma in that scene in the kitchen with Marge? They’re sitting at the table watching Lisa and the would-be-competitive eater Lucas in the back yard. Patty jokes that he’s fat, Marge says she’s surprised Lisa likes him, Patty then says: Really? Justin Blobber over there doesn’t remind you of anyone? That leads to a quick cut of Homer yelling and complaining, which leads to Selma explaining the plot to everyone: Women marry their fathers, Marge. So you just might be meeting your future ton-in-law! Then they both happily cackle at Lisa’s fate. It doesn’t bother me that the twins are being mean to the kid, but by extension they’re also gleefully bagging on Lisa, which is just weird. Patty and Selma hate Homer, and who could blame them? (Would you want your baby sister married to him?) But they’ve always been fond, even proud, of Lisa. Here they’re basically saying to Marge: you married fat loser and so will your precious daughter, ha ha. They want Lisa to marry someone like Homer just to teach Marge a lesson or something, and it’s utterly contrary to everything we know about them. Characters devolving into unrecognizable goo isn’t anything new for Zombie Simpsons. And it’s not like anyone put too much thought into that scene in the first place. But it goes to show how really empty and hollow this show has left so many once rich characters. Patty and Selma, for all their flaws, were always on Marge’s side. Here they’re not, and they’re attacking her through Lisa. It’s really bad, even for Zombie Simpsons.
Quote of the Day
“Daddy has very important work to do; he’s looking through the want ads to find a part time job.” – Homer Simpson “Dad, that’s a gag paper we got at the carnival.” – Lisa Simpson “Oh. No wonder I didn’t hear about Bart being elected World’s Greatest Sex Machine.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“You’re certainly in a good mood tonight, Dad.” – Lisa Simpson “Well, Lisa, I managed to solve a little problem today. And to celebrate, I’m going to tilt my chair. . . . Mmm, slanty.” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“Sure, Homer, I can loan you all the money you need. However, since you have no collateral, I’m gonna have to break your legs in advance.” – Moe “Oh, gosh, Moe, I use these all the time. Couldn’t you just bash my head in?” – Homer Simpson “Hey! Hey! Are you a loan shark? You you understand how finance works? Now let’s do this thing.” – Moe
Quote of the Day
“To Homer, and to Sgt. Pepper, who’s growing out of the middle of your back.” – Barney Gumble “Uh, Barn, you gotta unwrap the plastic before you smoke these.” – Moe
Quote of the Day
“This gets uglier every year. Any sign of Bart and Milhouse?” – Richard “No, and if they don’t get here soon, it’ll be TS for them.” – Lewis “I don’t feel right.” – Ralph Wiggum