“Yeah, I used to be rich. I owned Mickey Mouse Massage Parlors, then those Disney sleazeballs shut me down. I said, ‘Look, I’ll change the logo, put Mickey’s pants back on!’ Pfft, some guys you just can’t reason with.” – Railroad Bridge Bum Walter Elias Disney is an inescapable presence in American animation. Whether or not you like him, his work, or the giant company he spawned, when it comes to animation you are living in a world he did a great deal to shape. The Simpsons always had some fun with this, enough that SNPP has an entire page dedicated to the show’s various Disney references and parodies. Zombie Simpsons occasionally attempts to do this as well and, as with so much of Zombie Simpsons, falls haplessly short. In “How Munched Is That Birdie in the Window”, Zombie Simpsons had what passed for an Itchy & Scratchy segment that was loosely based off of an old Disney cartoon called “Pluto’s Judgement Day”. I mentioned this in Crazy Noises, but the animation here is really peculiar and I wanted to highlight it with examples. Look at the startling contrast between Itchy and the background here: The two things that jump out are the coloring and the crispness. The cave walls in the background and the podium in the foreground are both colored in various hues and shades. The background especially gets darker to give the impression of a deep recess in the cave. By contrast, Itchy is flat and monochromatic. Every part of his face is the same color; his gavel, clothes and gloves also remain the exact same color and shade no matter what he does: Itchy has gone from far away from the camera to right into the lens, and yet the only thing that changes is the shape of his various parts and objects, nothing in the coloring gives any hint that he’s moved at all. The dramatic lighting of the background is similarly ignored. Itchy got bigger, but there’s nothing other than size to indicate that he’s actually gestured forward. The precision of the lines on Itchy compared with the background is even more jarring. Look at the awkward juxtaposition of his sharp hand against the fuzzy podium. Now compare that to the gavel and the background behind it. The two are identical – sharp lines vs fuzzy ones – which makes the overall image even more awkward because his hand is supposed to be physically on the podium and the gavel is supposed to be far in front of the cave walls. The entire image is muddled because all of the tricks that give depth to the podium and the walls are ignored for Itchy. Now take a look at the Disney original (please forgive the lower resolution, I had to grab this from YouTube): The backgrounds are very similar in that they’re a little fuzzy and make a lot of use of color to both make the podium look tall and the walls look…
Tag: How Munched Is That Birdie In The Window
Crazy Noises: How Munched Is That Birdie in the Window
“Uh, the devil with his fly open.” – Homer Simpson “Right.” – Psychiatrist “Uh, that’s a spill on the floor with bugs going after it. And they’re gonna eat it.” – Homer Simpson “Good.” – Psychiatrist “Let’s see, it’s . . . the boy!” – Homer Simpson 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 “unrepentant”). Homer Simpson was once given a Rorschach test. He had been involuntarily hauled to the “New Bedlam Rest Home for the Emotionally Interesting” for the grievous crime of wearing a pink shirt to work. No introduction was needed, the scene just picked up with Homer reporting what he saw. The whole thing barely takes ten seconds and each line is a joke. In “How Munched is That Birdie in the Window”, Zombie Homer was acting out like the jerk he is when Marge distracted him with Rorschach pages. This led to a twenty second long series of grunts and screams. None of them had anything to do with what few ink blots were shown. There was hardly any dialogue; it was mostly Homer making faces while Castellaneta made noises. The other characters in the room didn’t react to this or anything, they just sat patiently and waited for him to finish. It was almost as if they knew they were in a crappy sitcom. Charlie Sweatpants: Time to take the plunge? Mad Jon: I am ready. Charlie Sweatpants: In that case, let me start out by saying that this felt like they were pulling words and concepts out of a hat. Mad Jon: That’s a pretty good description. It was even more randomly taped together than usual. Charlie Sweatpants: I know I complain about the stories every week, and it’s not unusual for the first act to have nothing to do with the rest of the episode, but this was even worse than usual. Dave: Manatees and idea balls, perhaps? Charlie Sweatpants: It wasn’t just the first act, it was the first half, and even that was padded left and right with whatever happened to fill up enough screen time. Between that thing that was like an Itchy & Scratchy, and that Patton bit, and the angels, and the horror story . . . it just kept getting more and more random. Mad Jon: I did think they were going to make Homer talk in that voice the entire episode, but then they surprised me and had him do other random activities and voices…. Also, Danica…
Paging G.E. Smith (Updated)
“So then his wife comes through the door!” – Homer Simpson “So?” – Bart Simpson “Did I mention she was dead?” – Homer Simpson “No.” – Lisa Simpson “Well, she was. And she hit him in the head with a golf club!” – Homer Simpson “And?” – Bart Simpson “Don’t you remember? He went golfing all the time and it really bugged her.” – Homer Simpson “You said he went bowling!” – Lisa Simpson “D’oh!” – Homer Simpson I’ve often compared Zombie Simpsons to bad sketch comedy, and “How Munched is That Birdie in the Window” is one of the best examples yet inflicted upon the masses. Not only did none of the scenes compliment each other, many of them had literally nothing to do with the rest of the episode. Instead, there were a series of brief scenes that barfed up a few hammy jokes and pratfalls before ending as abruptly as they started. It began with another extremely long couch opening. That was followed by two scenes that were completely unrelated to everything. And I mean “completely”, both the angels bowling and Homer’s Halloween leftover story had nothing to do with the rest of the episode, nor were they setting anything up. I half expected a house band to break in and play a few guitar licks so that the transition from the monologue to the Big Ear Family would be easier on the audience. Then, apropos of nothing, the pigeon showed up. That lead to a pigeon montage, an unrelated Homer scene with a pigeon coop, another unrelated scene with Milhouse, random characters using pigeon messages to set up random scenes and, finally, Moe appearing for no reason whatsoever. Each scene has its own little timid stabs at humor, then ends. You could write a description of each one on an index card, shuffle them thoroughly, and reorder the entire episode and it would’ve made as much (or more) sense as the real thing. The main conflict, if it can even be called that, was Bart getting upset at his dog, and that wasn’t introduced until halfway through. It too came straight out of the blue, Santa’s Little Helper simply appeared and ate the bird, though the suddenness did not prevent them from milking it for half a minute of screen time. As if to add to the randomness, they had two relatively well known guest stars, one an actual actress, neither of whom was given anything to do but appear and disappear quickly. Oh, and did I mention that it ends with an ostrich fight? It did. And, no, it didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the episode either. The numbers are in and, sadly, they’re up. Happily, they are also not final, as football ran very long on FOX yesterday. The preliminary numbers say that 9.42 million people choked down last night’s Zombie Simpsons, but even with the big lead in from football those numbers are likely to come down. Since that…
Sunday Preview: “How Munched Is That Birdie In The Window?”
I hate shitty, two-bit, fame-whore Danica Patrick so much that I’m not even going to dignify this episode with commentary. I’ll leave it at the description from our friends at Simpsons Channel: Bart helps nurse an injured pigeon back to health. After Santa’s Little Helper eats the bird, Bart has a hard time coping with the loss. Worried that Bart needs some help getting over the loss, Marge and Homer take him to a therapy session with Dr. Thurston, who advises that the only cure for Bart’s blues is to give away the family dog, but when the Simpsons visit the pup’s new home, a shock causes them to rethink their decision.